In what appears to be a setback to the Posco's dream 12-million ton steel project, the National Green Tribunal on Tuesday issued notices to the union ministry for environment and forest (MoEF), Orissa government, Orissa State Pollution Control Board (OSPCB) and Posco India asking about the circumstances under which environmental clearance was given to the South Korean company's proposal for the largest FDI project and a captive port in Jagatsinghpur...

In the past 50 years or so, we have come face to face with unusual climatic occurrences, weather changes and environmental disasters. These are a corollary of the global pursuit of rapid growth, in particular rapid growth of industrialisation, and very often the mindless and predatory exploitation of natural resources. These have happened across the world, without distinguishing between rich and poor nations... In the increasingly integrated world that we live...

-The Hindu   ‘Will work on full-time basis to evolve more objective standards of scrutiny' Amid criticism that industrialisation and economic growth were getting blocked due to delay in granting “environmental clearances” to industries, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Sunday announced the government's plans to set up an independent regulator for giving environmental clearances. “We also hope to establish an independent regulator — the National Environment Appraisal and Monitoring Authority — soon. This...

There will soon be a new set of glass doors at Krishi Bhavan. The newly elevated Cabinet Minister for Rural Development Jairam Ramesh plans to bring the doors — a signature element of his interior décor right from his early days at the Commerce Ministry — to his new office. Over the last two tumultuous years at the Environment Ministry, those doors have symbolised the transparency and accessibility he claims...

NEW DELHI: Sealing the fate of Vedanta's bauxite mining project in Niyamgiri hills of Orissa, Union environment minister Jairam Ramesh cancelled the environmental clearance as well on Monday. He had rejected the forest clearance in an order in August 2010. Ramesh's decision came after TOI had reported that his ministry's project review arm, the Environment Appraisal Committee, had again recommended the project despite the minister's order stating that the environmental clearance...