-The United Nations Despite the growing number of nature reserves, national parks and other protected areas around the world, half of the globe’s richest biodiversity zones remain entirely unprotected, according to a United Nations report presented today. Amongst the report’s other main findings are that protected areas are being managed in a more equitable way, with a greater role for indigenous communities – but current investment in protected areas is only around...

-Outlook Hyderabad: New approaches such as Public Private Partnerships(PPP) and community-based activities would go a long way in maintaining healthy ecosystems and improving livelihoods, a senior World Bank official said here today. Observing that there is not enough public money to invest in the biodiversity needs of the world, Rachel Kyte, World Bank Vice President for Sustainable Development, said new approaches are needed to finance nature conservation efforts. The World Bank has a...

-The Hindu "Collusion with Ajit Pawar to get Vidarbha land for his NGO" Training its guns on the Bharatiya Janata Party, India Against Corruption (IAC) on Wednesday alleged that the party president Nitin Gadkari took undue favours from the Maharashtra government in allotment of land acquired from Vidarbha farmers for a “public purpose.” For their generations-old land the farmers were compensated with a paltry sum of Rs. 5,000 per acre in 1981-82. Addressing...

-The Times of India IAS officer Ashok Khemka's decision to take his grievances to the media does not seem to have gone down well with the government. Though neither Khemka, who has been transferred 43 times in 19 years, nor the state government has approached the ministry of personnel, officials here appeared to be critical of his going to the media with his complaint of abrupt transfer. The ministry of personnel looks...

-The Hindu Fresh documents with The Hindu show clear and undeniable links between the sudden transfer of senior IAS official Ashok Khemka and his initiation of a probe specifically related to Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law Robert Vadra and his companies, contrary to the Haryana government attempts to establish that the two events were unrelated. The documents belie the claims made by the Haryana government that Mr. Khemka acted on the Vadra-DLF...