After feeding the country, the enterprising farmers of Punjab now want to try their hands in Ethiopia. The progressive farmers, mainly members of POSCOn (Confederation of Potato Seed Farmers), are planning to take 2,000-5,000 hectares farmland on lease in Ethiopia for growing cash crops like oilseeds, pulses, sugarcane and maize. The delegation of the progressive farmers has twice visited Ethiopia on the invitation of Ethiopian government. Speaking to Business Standard, POSCOn...

India’s rulers have found a new vocation – maligning environmentalists and questioning the very idea of regulating industry for pollution. Thus, faced with criticism of Lavasa, an artificial gated city of the super-rich near Pune, in which his family has invested crores, Agriculture Minister, Sharad Pawar, lashed out at well-known activist Medha Patkar and other “vested interests” for obstructing this “pioneering” project. Lavasa’s promoters built the project without seeking environmental clearance...

The Environment Ministry's clearance of projects such as POSCO, Jaitapur and Lavasa will cause havoc in our gravely endangered environment. EVEN the worst pessimist could not have imagined that the January 31 order of the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) approving the South Korean-origin company POSCO's steel project in Orissa would be as bad as it actually is. Construction of the Rs.54,000-crore steel plant, its captive power unit and private...

Activists opposed to the POSCO project in Orissa have decided not to give "an inch of land" for the mega steel venture, even as the BJD government was gearing to start land acquisition over the next two weeks. POSCO Pratirodh Sangram Samiti (PPSS) Chairman Abhaya Sahu said that anti-POSCO movement was passing through a very "critical stage" after Union Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh gave clearance for the project. "We have been fighting...

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's observation that enforcement of environmental regulatory standards should not lead to a throwback to the days of the licence-permit raj strikes a jarring note in an era of enlightened, science-based conservation. By projecting regulation as a threat to economic development, he has brought needless pressure to bear on the nascent efforts of Minister Jairam Ramesh to bring accountability and transparency to the Ministry of Environment and...