"India lives in several centuries at the same time. Somehow we manage to progress and regress simultaneously." Arundhati Roy Controversies, protests and violence have marred land acquisition for projects in India. Protests against acquiring agricultural land, inappropriate compensation or environmental impact have been the main reasons for these protests. In most cases, the protests are by farmers who are hardly compensated after their fertile agricultural land is taken over in for...

Posco, the world's fourth largest steel maker, was in January ranked among a global list of 100 companies that will last for the next 100 years. Interestingly, governance, transparency and capacity to handle environment-related issues are taken into account in selecting these 100 companies "Posco will not only last the next 100 years, but will go beyond, and India will play a big part in our story of survival and growth", CK...

Newly released National Sample Survey data shows that the proportion of students in private educational institutions has increased at the cost of those in government institutions, but private education remains affordable only to upper classes. Meanwhile, expenditure on education, particularly private education, is growing much faster than household budgets. The NSS 64th round (2007-8) records data on participation and expenditure on education after a gap of 11 years. The NSS...

The Indian Electricity Act, 2003, initially envisaged that the appropriate governments shall endeavour to supply electricity to all areas including villages and hamlets (Section 6), thus placing the responsibility for ensuring rural electricity supply on state governments. The UPA-I government amended this section to read as follows after detailed deliberations internally and with opposition parties: the concerned state government and the central government shall jointly endeavour to provide access to...

Like coal, the iron ore mining sector in the country too will soon have ‘go’ and ‘no go’ areas where green clearance will be given depending on their ecological sensitivity, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh has said. He was speaking at a national workshop on “Reforms in Environmental Regulation” on Tuesday where he underlined the need to ensure developmental activities while protecting ecological concerns. “We would soon extend the exercise of...