-The Hindu Business Line The rejection of the the Gadgil panel report, by all the six States along the Western Ghats, has proved to be a costly error The floods of catastrophic dimensions that ravaged Kerala recently have brought into sharp focus the all-round ecological destruction caused by human interference in the State’s hilly terrains. The fact that there were 12 major landslides and hundreds of minor ones within a fortnight in the...

-TheWeek.in Noted ecologist Madhav Gadgil blames the “law-flouting” state government for the devastation in Kerala. The Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP), headed by Gadgil in 2011, had suggested measures to preserve the ecologically frail Ghats. But, the Kerala government, like the other five states, chose to reject the report. Having suffered such devastation, Gadgil feels that the state should survey the “ecologically sensitive zones” that have been compromised due to...

-National Herald The police acted in gross violation of the law, killing 13 people; the judiciary failed the people and the media spread canards      The targeted shooting of peaceful demonstrators in Thoothukudi (also known as Tuticorin), which resulted in the Tamil Nadu Police killing 13 people in cold blood, and injuring scores of others, and the subsequent brutal crackdown on civilians, points to a sinister collusion between the owners of Sterlite...

-The Hindu Business Line After Allahabad HC rebuff, power firms look for govt lifeline Mumbai: About 70 companies with a combined debt of approximately ?3.6-lakh crore face insolvency proceedings, with the deadline imposed by the Reserve Bank of India ending on Monday. These companies did not get any legal relief as the Allahabad High Court declined to stay the RBI’s February circular instructing banks to take all large accounts above ?2,000 crore...

-The Indian Express Despite framing rules, proposing fines and starting ‘model colonies’, waste segregation in the capital has failed to take off. With mountains of garbage continuing to grow, The Indian Express reports on the challenges before authorities. The year 2015 was an eye-opener of sorts for Arpit Bhargava. Down with dengue, the lawyer started thinking about the link between waste and diseases. But thoughts gave way to action when he heard...