In a bid to give local communities a key role in managing forest resources, the Forest Department's smallest unit at the grassroots-level will now report to panchayati-raj institutions instead. In a letter to all Chief Ministers on Friday, Union Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh directed State governments to amend State acts and rules to bring all Joint Forest Management Committees (JFMCs) under the supervision of Gram Sabhas. This means that the village leaders...

The hopes of an early compliance to their demand of payment of minimum wages receding, the MNREGA workers, who are on an indefinite dharna here, on Saturday threatened to observe a “Black Diwali” this season. The dharna, convened by the Suchana Evum Rogar Ka Adhikar Abhiyan, on its 29th day was attended by over 2,000 persons from 22 districts of Rajasthan. The workers took out a rally in the evening demanding...

An illiterate tribal woman from Orissa's Jagatsinghpur district is all set to play a vital role in deciding the fate of the Rs 51,000 crore Posco steel project, billed as the country's biggest FDI. The role of Meena Hembram and 20 others came to limelight after the Meena Gupta panel, which submitted its reports to the union Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF) on October 18, pointed out that there were...

The Centre on Thursday asked the states to appoint dedicated staff in each panchayat for effective implementation of rural development schemes, saying no goals could be achieved without them. “We are spending Rs40 lakh each year on various functionaries in panchayats and there is no one (visible) except the gram sevaks,” union minister for rural development C. P. Joshi said while addresing a conference of state ministers on total sanitation here. “There...

The Rs 51,000-crore Posco steel project in Orissa, that has been delayed for five years, faces the prospect of getting delayed further. The ministry of tribal affairs is now looking at the possibility of whether the South Korean steel project, which also represents the largest foreign direct investment (FDI) in India so far, has actually encroached into the land owned by tribals. The Union ministry of environment and forest (MoEF) has...