-Scroll.in According to the residents of Oting village, joining the army was an ‘honourable job’. Now, they want the army to leave the area. On November 25, Hokup Konyak, a 38-year-old coal miner, married Monglong Konyak. The wedding was held in the hahshahapang, or village square, in Oting in Nagaland’s Mon district. Everyone in the village attended. Eleven days later, his funeral was held in the same village square. “He was buried just...

-NetworkIdeas.org In recent weeks the media have featured stories bordering on the alarmist about a coal shortage in India. Coal inventories with thermal power plants had fallen to levels at which major country-wide power outages seemed inevitable. Fortunately, that has not (as yet) materialized, but it is indeed true that coal inventories with the power producers did collapse from the equivalent of around 30 days requirement to that for a couple...

-Hindustan Times The Union environment ministry has relaxed the environmental norms for the expansion of certain iron, manganese, bauxite, and limestone mines The Union environment ministry has relaxed the environmental norms for the expansion of certain iron, manganese, bauxite, and limestone mines. According to an office memorandum (OM) issued on October 20, expansion of up to 20% capacity for mines of these four minerals with a 5-star rating can be allowed only...

-Newslaundry.com The government has sold coal blocks for far cheaper prices than they fetched five years ago. In 2015, the Narendra Modi government auctioned two coal blocks in Chhattisgarh. Gare Palma IV/1 fetched a bid of Rs 1,585 per tonne while Gare Palma IV/7 was auctioned for Rs 2,619. The bid for the first block was too low, the government claimed amid allegations of cartelisation, and cancelled it. In case of the...

-Hindustan Times Earlier this week, the ministry released a user manual for online submission of an undertaking on no increase in pollution load due to expansion, on its Parivesh website. The environment ministry has allowed companies operating in several industries, including some polluting ones, to expand capacities on the basis of a self-certification that this will not “increase the pollution load”, creating the room for potential misdeclaration (and misuse), especially in light...