-IANS SHIMLA: Himachal Pradesh's forest department is engaged in a massive project to remove lantana, an exotic flowering shrub that threatens the state's biodiversity, and re-greening the hills with fast-growing native flora, foresters said. Lantana's tentacles are threatening the natural regeneration of native species. It is estimated to be spread over 1,850 sq km of forests and wastelands, especially in the subtropical belt of Sirmaur, Una, Bilaspur, Hamirpur, Solan and Kangra districts....

-Down to Earth For RTI activists of Bihar the cost of exposing corruption is life Twenty-year-old Rahul Kumar, a right to information (RTI) activist, knew the land mafia was behind his parents' murder. His mother and father were involved in a land dispute in Muzaffarpur's Sirisia Jagdish village. Barely a week after filing an RTI application to seek information about the murderers, Kumar was kidnapped. A day later, on March 10, 2012,...

-Live Mint Lack of decentralization means municipalities lack power, resources to meet rising aspirations of ‘middle' India Othakadai, Madurai (Tamil Nadu)/Hubli (Karnataka): S. Paramasivam , president of the Othakadai panchayat, has big plans for his area. "Rainwater harvesting, removal of encroachments on roads, waste recycling, covered drainage, bigger primary health care centres and community parks," lists the 58-year-old, who has spent 30 years in the stainless steel business that dominates industry...

-The Business Standard The new findings reaffirm the trend of casualisation of labour as reflected in the recent employment survey of the Labour Bureau Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde on Tuesday released the Census 2011. The data shows a 2.5 per cent increase in the number of people engaged in temporary work (jobs lasting less than three-six months). The new findings reaffirm the trend of casualisation of labour as reflected in the recent...

-Economic and Political Weekly The Saradha group's collapse has possibly bankrupted lakhs of small investors robbing them of their life svaings, and has rendered thousands of its agents jobless. The scam highlights the failure of the government and its regulatory agencies to reign in the mushrooming chit fund companies in West Bengal. It also brings under the scanner the Trinamool Congress' proximity with the tainted group. In the wake of the...