-Down to Earth   Lakhwar-Vyasi project cleared by Centre this year is a violation of Supreme Court order, says expert The Uttarakhand government is pushing for more hydropower projects in the state even through a Supreme Court-appointed panel of experts blamed existing hydel power projects in the state for the Uttarakhand flood disaster of 2013. The panel has sought complete overhaul of the environment clearance mechanism for such projects. The state government has...

-Outlook Raipur: The Chhattisgarh government today said that 43 people, who were part of the urban network of the Maoists, were arrested in the state during past five years. In a written reply to a question from senior Congress legislator Bhupesh Baghel in the state Assembly, Home Minister Ramsewak Paikra informed the House that as many as 43 people, including women, were arrested from 2009 till January 20 this year on charges...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: The environment ministry has set up an expert group, as mandated by the Supreme Court, to determine whether hydropower projects along Alaknanda and Bhagirathi rivers and their tributaries contributed to environmental degradation, an effort to ensure there is no repeat of the Uttarakhand disaster witnessed earlier this year. Headed by Ravi Chopra, member of National Ganga River Basin Authority (NGRBA) and director of People's Science Institute,...

-The Telegraph Three of the nine experts assigned the job of saving the Ganga resigned from a high-powered central body today, voicing their frustration at being kept out of the loop and the "furious pace" of clearing projects they had repeatedly opposed. In a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who chairs the National Ganga River Basin Authority (NGRBA), the three said the government had not convened a single meeting of the...

-The Hindu While the focus is on pilgrims, nobody is talking about the fate of boys and men who came from their villages in the Mandakini valley to earn during the yatri season It is one week since Uttarakhand's worst disaster in living memory. Flash floods resulting from extremely intense rainfall swept away mountainsides, villages and towns, thousands of people, animals, agricultural fields, irrigation canals, domestic water sources, dams, roads, bridges, and...