Finance minsiter Pranab Mukherjee has favoured a balanced approach on the issue of displacement of tribals due to mining projects, saying that solution does not lie in stopping these projects altogether. “Answer does not lie in the companies stopping mining activities. Answer lies in providing alternatives to those displaced... in what form we can compensate them and make them beneficiary of economic development,” Mr Mukherjee said at a coal summit on...

Exposed, untreated excrement can kill by the million. One of the hardest-won UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is a 2015 target of halving the proportion of those without sustainable access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation. Even if achieved, the target would still leave some 500 million on the planet without this basic requirement for survival and dignity. As many as 79 per cent of rural and 46 per...

The minister for environment and forests, Jairam Ramesh’s order stopping Vedanta Aluminum Ltd and the Orissa Mining Corporation from mining bauxite in the Niyamgiri Hills to feed the company’s adjacent Lanjigarh aluminum refinery plant located in one of the country’s poorest districts in the name of tribal interest tends to miss the wood for the trees. It is based on the report of a four-member expert group under N C...

More than six decades after Independence, the Tamil Nadu government has woken up to the demands of tribals living in Vettukkadu village, surrounded by the Mullaiperiyar river and thick jungles of the Western Ghats, by opening a part-time ration shop in their area. This is the first government project in the village, which is largely inaccessible due to its location between thick forests and the Mullaiperiyar river. No government scheme, including...

The central government has given over Rs.217 crore to five public sector units (PSUs) for construction of rural roads in Bihar under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY), the rural development ministry said Thursday. The state-run firms, which have been given these funds include the National Projects Construction Corporation Ltd (Rs.60 crore), the IRCON International Ltd (Rs.4.19 crore) and the Central Public Works Department (Rs.46.80 crore). The other two PSUs involved...