-The Telegraph At least 50 people have died in rain-triggered landslides, house collapses and flash floods in the north, mostly in Uttarakhand that has halted the popular Badrinath pilgrimage with around 30,000 pilgrims, many from Bengal, stranded. Three days of incessant rain have sent into spate Uttarakhand rivers that have burst banks and washed away houses - one of them a four-storey structure that had been vacated, apart from a temple. At least...

-IANS Shimla: The hydropower projects in Himachal Pradesh -- in private and public sectors -- are not only gobbling up forests but also damaging natural resources, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) has found. The compensatory afforestation by the state is highly deficient as 58 percent of the test-checked hydropower projects reported no afforestation at all, the CAG said in its recent report. It pointed out that lack of re-greening of...

-Tehelka Close to 30 percent of forests have been converted to Chir Pine monocultures displacing grazing rights of several communities like the Gaddis and Gujjars. There is no quantitative assessement of the impact of loss on people's lives The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers Act, or Recognition of Forest Rights Act - commonly known as the Forest Rights Act (FRA) was passed by Parliament in 2006 to address historical injustices...

-The Hindu   The government does it purely on the strength of a certificate issued by the district administration Even as the recent affidavit submitted by the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) before the Supreme Court in the Vedanta case has caused dismay among tribal communities and activists for the dilution of its stand on diverting forest lands of tribal communities, the Ministry has gone a step further and allowed diversion...

-Outlook Seven more persons fell prey to biting cold wave in UP where death toll due to the harsh weather touched 69 today, while most other parts of North India also shivered and fog disrupted rail and air traffic. The National capital had a gloomy weather as the fog returned after four days, and the maximum temperature was recorded at 17 degree Celsius, a drop of four notches. The minimum was recorded...