A Social Impact Assessment report has slammed the 9900MW Jaitapur nuclear power park proposed in coastal Konkan, saying it would have a negative social and environmental impact on nearby villages. The 40-page report, compiled by a disaster management centre of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, has analysed the social impact the project would have on seven villages where the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd will acquire about 968 hectares. The...

Returning home from work recently, farmer Baidhar Singh was aghast to find his thatched hut in Balasore district, Orissa trampled to the ground. Just a few hundred metres away stood the culprits, huge and grey against the darkening sky: a herd of 65 wild elephants. That was a few weeks ago. Up till now, Singh and his wife are still calling a polythene-covered lean-to home. Singh’s experience has become quite common in...

Retail giants pushing the European Union-India free trade deal promise consumers a "new and dynamic retail experience" but ignore the fate of India’s "mom-and-pop" stores and some 40 million people they employ. Four years in the making, the EU-India Bilateral Trade and Investment Agreement made serious headway during Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Brussels Dec. 10 and is due to be signed and sealed early 2011. But the negotiations have...

The Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP) headed by ecologist Madhav Gadgil has decided to walk the untrodden path. In the summary report which raises environmental concerns in the Sindhudurg and Ratnagiri regions of Maharashtra and emphatically supports the rights of its people, while strongly criticising the government's role, the WGEEP gave voice to the years of protests witnessed by the regions. The report seeks to answer various questions related to...

The two day 43rd Session of the Indian Labour Conference (ILC), the apex national tripartite body that discusses key issues affecting labour and employment and provides policy perspectives and recommendations, concluded in New Delhi today. The Conference was inaugurated by Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh on Tuesday 23rd November 2010. Senior level representatives of the three pillars of the tripartism, Trade Unions, Employers’ Associations and Government, participated in the deliberations...