After Ashok Chavan, it's now the turn of the former Chief Minister, Sushilkumar Shinde, to face trouble for “favours” to the Adarsh Society during his tenure from January 18, 2003 to October 31, 2004, according to a complaint filed on Saturday with the Maharashtra State Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB). Mr. Shinde has already denied his role in the scam repeatedly. Advocate Y.P. Singh and activist Simpreet Singh told journalists that Mr. Ashok...

Off With Their Rights...     * As many as 3 lakh slum dwellers in Delhi were evicted before the Commonwealth Games     * When a family is evicted, each member loses many rights—the rights to livelihood, shelter, health, education etc     * Of some 60,000 beggars on Delhi streets, more than 50,000 were removed for the Games *** Forget the razzle-dazzle and the hype over the recently concluded Commonwealth Games (CWG) in Delhi. The human...

The ‘Aichi Target' adopted by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) at its Nagoya conference could not have come at a more appropriate time. The journal Science recently published a study by Michael Hoffmann and his colleagues titled “The Impact of Conservation on the Status of the World's Vertebrates.” This presents depressing data on threatened species. The scientists conclude that four important factors — agricultural expansion, logging, over-exploitation, and invasive...

The deck's being stacked against Posco. In the biggest blow yet to the South Korean giant's Rs 54,000-crore project in Orissa, a key committee of the environment ministry has recommended the withdrawal of forest clearance to the multinational's plan to build an integrated steel plant. If accepted by environment minister Jairam Ramesh, the recommendation of the forest advisory committee (FAC) could sound the death-knell for the country's biggest FDI project....

The Posco tale got another twist on Thursday with the environment ministry's forest advisory committee deciding to rethink whether it should ask the ministry of tribal affairs to verify the violations of Forest Rights Act or it should do so itself. In a meeting held on October 25, the FAC had concluded that it would recommend that the tribal affairs ministry take a final call on whether the Orissa government had...