The National Green Tribunal's decision to suspend the Environmental Clearance given to Posco vindicates the project's critics. ON March 30, the Principal Bench of the newly formed National Green Tribunal (NGT) delivered a momentous decision suspending the Environmental Clearance (EC) given to the South Korean transnational corporation, Posco, to set up an integrated steel plant at Paradip in Odisha's Jagatsinghpur district. The former Union Minister for Environment and Forests, Jairam...

-PTI In a huge relief to Maharashtra government, the judicial commission of inquiry looking into the Adarsh housing scam has held that the land on which the controversial building stands belongs to the state and not the Army. The two-member panel, which had submitted its interim report to the government last Friday, has also held that the building was not reserved for war heroes and Kargil widows. The interim report was discussed by...

So what if it was the largest-ever FDI in India? The law finally caught up with it on 30 March 2012, when the National Green Tribunal suspended POSCO’s Environmental Clearance and ordered a fresh review. We can celebrate the outcome in this day and cynical age: It is still possible, though not easy, to get environmental justice in this country. Since June 2005, when the agreement between the Government of Orissa...

When universities start censoring speech and banning books, and permission is needed to hold conferences, we risk becoming a hollow, illiberal democracy. Do you need the administration's prior permission to hold a meeting, seminar, symposium or conference at a university? Most academics in liberal democracies would either be astounded by the question or feel compelled to answer it with an emphatic, if not vehement, no. The administration, they would argue, should...

South Korean steel maker Posco may have to start its bid to enter India from scratch, letting six years of preparatory work go to waste. A top tribunal has cancelled environmental approvals given by the government last year for the company’s $12 billion (around Rs61,440 crore today) steel plant in Orissa and ordered that the environment ministry review the entire project afresh. The tribunal said Environmental Clearances have been accorded in...