Every time Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh says no to a project, his critics give him a new label: Green fundamentalist, anti-business, anti-growth, obstructionist, Luddite and Dr. No. The job has rarely attracted so much attention, but Ramesh has turned a sleepy and apathetic ministry into a controversial one in recent months. His pronouncements have stopped projects worth billions of dollars, creating powerful enemies in industry and business. His political colleagues have...

The implementation of a landmark forest rights Act, which in 2006 overturned several colonial-era laws in India that denied forest dwellers entitlements to land and other resources, has been “terrible”, an official panel has said.   The national committee, established in April last year by the tribal affairs and environment and forests ministries, visited 17 states in seven months and released its report on Monday. “Our site visits show the implementation has been...

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has started investigating the Rs 300-crore fraud by Citibank manager Shivraj Puri after receiving a report from the bank. Officials at Citibank said the RBI had been regularly updated on its internal investigations since the fraud came to light. “We have shared all the details with the RBI. The RBI will now investigate the matter further,” the Citibank official said. An RBI spokesperson confirmed that the probe...

NRHM needs to revitalise systems, monitor their functional performance and investigate their impact on the indices of health. The National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) was launched in 2005 to bring about a dramatic improvement in the health system and health status of people in rural India. It seeks to provide universal access to health care, which is affordable, equitable, and of good quality. It aims at making architectural corrections to basic...

Demanding waiver of farm loans of rain-hit farmers in Orissa and relaxation of paddy standard for procurement, the Congress on Sunday asked the Centre to form a Monitoring committee to supervise utilisation of its assistance for the distressed farmers. The Centre should form a committee to monitor and supervise utilisation of its assistance for the farmers whose crops have been damaged due to untimely rains in Odisha, Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee...