The polluting Cement plant will harm the ecosystem: expert body ‘It is considered a valuable common property resource by the locals' In a victory for the farmers of Gujarat's Bhavnagar district, the Environment Ministry has decided that the site of Nirma Industries' proposed Cement plant there is a wetland and an environmentally sensitive area. The plant will have to be relocated, the Ministry told the Supreme Court on Tuesday. The Ministry accepted the...

Workers employed at the Jaitapur nuclear power project site at Madban village have fled after the violent incidents on April 18 when a mob damaged equipment and indulged in arson. A Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) spokesperson on Thursday told The Hindu on the phone that workers have left since the situation was not conducive to staying there. “In any case, there are a few holidays from tomorrow [Friday]...

Irom Sharmila Chanu and Anna Hazare have one thing in common – the ability to fast indefinitely for what they perceive is right. But the similarities end there. She has been on a political fast for 11 years but her silent resilience moves you when you realize the sheer magnitude of what she is single-handedly trying to achieve. Far from the glare of studio lights of television channels and tangled wires of...

Company consistently violated tenets of Cement Wage Board Award ACC says it is studying the court ruling and examining options Every evening about 500 workers shrug off the exhaustion of an eight-hour shift to protest outside the premises of ACC Ltd.'s Jamul Cement factory in Durg, Chhattisgarh. Closed fists swing rhythmically to chants of “Inqilab zindabad,” as factory veterans who have been protesting for 20 years stand beside young men with little...

EnforCement Directorate has begun attaching Madhu Koda and his friends’ properties, mostly flats and land in Bihar, Jharkhand and Maharashtra, valued at over Rs 300 crore. Armed with an April 6 approval order from the adjudicating authority for cases under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), the directorate is sticking to the higher valuation even though 2007 revenue department assessments pegged the properties’ worth at around Rs 130 crore. “This is...