-BBC   India will set up an environment regulator to bring in a "complete change" in the process of granting clearances for industries. PM Manmohan Singh said the regulator would also ensure the compliance of "green norms" by industry. India's environment ministry has been often embroiled in controversy over how to balance development with the preservation of the environment. This has led to the delay of a number of projects across the country. Announcing the...

It was the end of a long, tiring and humid day. Sitting near the bamboo gate of his 'precious' betel vineyard, 70-year-old Narayan Mandal said despondently, "I don't want to migrate, once again." Mandal, a resident of Gobindpur village in Orissa's Jagatsinghpur district, is one of the many opposing the state government's ambitious $12 billion Posco steel project. For the last six years, three gram panchayats - Dhinkia, Nuagaon and Gada...

-The Hindu   A letter to the Prime Minister on the importance of a ‘near-universal PDS.' July 21, 2011 Dr. Manmohan Singh Prime Minister of India Respected Prime Minister, We are a group of research scholars and student volunteers who have just spent three weeks surveying the Public Distribution System (PDS) around the country. We are writing to share a few thoughts on the National Food Security Act in the light of this experience. Our survey covered...

The draft Prevention of Communal and Targeted Violence Bill 2011, proposed by the NAC, has attracted welcome debate. Any legislative measure, intended to correct a historical wrong, should indeed be subject to the closest scrutiny to improve and strengthen it. For if we get this right it can help realise, far better than we have so far, the constitutional guarantees of equality before the law. This bill is built on India’s...

If you buy electricity from Reliance Energy, you can now get any information from the parent company — Reliance Infrastructure — using the Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005. The state information commission has stated that suburban power supplier Reliance Infrastructure (RInfra) comes under the ambit of the RTI Act. Justifying the order, the commission said though RInfra is a private company, Reliance Energy provides essential public service, and hence should come...