-Outlook The real story of a ‘decisive' UPA blowing away the eight-year cloud around Posco's project Bend It Like Moily Seven reasons why UPA's pre-poll green clearance for Posco is more about spiel than steel Posco got green clearance after the sudden removal of MoEF Jayanthi Natarajan, who was reluctant to sign on the file. The nod came days before South Korean President Park Geun-hye's visit;...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: Environment and forest minister Veerappa Moily on Wednesday rolled back a major hurdle in the forest clearance process for projects like roads, transmission lines and pipelines that pass through villages and forest land, reintroduced in July 2013 by his predecessor Jayanthi Natarajan. The environment ministry has clarified on January 15 that linear projects would be able to get a forest clearance without procuring the consent of all...

-The Telegraph Bhubaneswar: The state government today reacted sharply to the Centre's decision to reject Vedanta's plan to mine bauxite from the Niyamgiri hills in Kalahandi district. Mining of bauxite in the Niyamgiri hills was to be carried out by the state-owned Odisha Mining Corporation (OMC) and Sterlite Industries Limited, a Vedanta group subsidiary. Steel and mines minister Rajanikant Singh said: "It is really unfortunate. The UPA government is not serious about the...

-Survival International Anthropologist Dr. Felix Padel works with the tribes of Odisha in eastern India, including the Dongria Kondh, for whom Survival International has campaigned for 10 years. Felix is the great great grandson of Charles Darwin and lives in a remote village in Odisha. In this interview, he talks to Survival about the Dongria Kondh's relationship to their mountains, their heroic struggle against Vedanta, Darwin's evolution theory and the experience...

-BBC A survey done earlier this year shows that public facilities in the poorest regions of India have steadily expanded, improving the lives of people there, writes development economist Jean Dreze. Once upon a time, not so long ago, public facilities in the poorest districts of India were few and far between. Most people were left to their own devices and they lived in the shadow of hunger, insecurity and exploitation, with no...