The Environment ministry is on an industrial overdrive, with rules being changed for faster clearance of projects at the cost of the Environment. While the standing committee of the National Board for Wildlife will lose its power to examine projects in tiger and elephant corridors, a sectoral forest advisory committee will be allowed to decide on diversion of forest land and projects even in dense forests. These are some of the...

-The Hindu “Elimination of child labour is an article of faith to us” The Centre is committed to protecting the welfare of children, Union Minister for Labour and Employment Mallikarjun Kharge said here on Sunday. “Elimination of child labour is an article of faith and commitment to us,” he asserted. He was happy to point out that there had been a sharp decline in the number of children in the age group of...

Eminent journalist Dileep Padgaonkar who headed the group of three Central interlocutors for Jammu and Kashmir said on Thursday that the thrust of their report was to empower the people of Jammu and Kashmir so that they were able to exercise their civil and political rights in full measure. The 176-page report of the group of Central interlocutors was uploaded on the website of Union Home Ministry on Thursday, seven months...

-The Telegraph Parliament has passed the country’s first comprehensive law on sexual crimes against children, removing several factors that may intimidate a minor while filing complaints. Under the new act — the Protection of Children against Sexual Offences Bill — a child will no longer be treated on a par with an adult in case of sexual abuse. It empowers a child to file a complaint from his or her own room, give...

-The Hindu The murder of S.P. Mahantesh, who succumbed to injuries five days after he was brutally attacked, is a gloomy reminder of the risks of being upright in an Environment that stinks of corruption. It also reinforces the need to push through with the long delayed legislation to protect whistleblowers, who often reveal information in the public interest at great personal risk. Mahantesh's death is especially poignant for The Hindu...