Naseema Akhtar, 38, worries that her daily treks to collect clean water from the mountain springs around her village of Bonpora, in Kashmir’s Kupwara district, are getting longer. She is already doing more than seven km every day. "The higher up you go, the cleaner the water is likely to be, but there is a limit to how far one can climb to fetch a pitcher of water," she told IPS....

South Korean steel maker Posco may have to start its bid to enter India from scratch, letting six years of preparatory work go to waste. A top tribunal has cancelled Environmental approvals given by the government last year for the company’s $12 billion (around Rs61,440 crore today) steel plant in Orissa and ordered that the Environment ministry review the entire project afresh. The tribunal said Environmental clearances have been accorded in...

-The Hindu   “Heart of policy is that government believes people should pay tax somewhere” Even as Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee faces flak from corporates at home and abroad on his budget proposal to tax Vodafone-type deals through retrospective amendment, World Bank president Robert Zoellick sought to side with the government saying India wanted the company to pay tax at some place. He also reasoned that investors must give some time to the government...

The Comptroller and Auditor-General has slammed the Narendra Modi government for financial irregularities, particularly for mismanagement of public sector undertakings, resulting in losses of over Rs. 16,000 crore. It has come down heavily on the state-owned Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation (GSPC) for extending “undue benefits” to the Chief Minister's “favoured few,” mainly Adani Energy and Essar Steel companies, which coupled with its poor management and faulty agreements on exploration of oil...

-The Times of India   Delhi-based NGO, Centre for Science and Environment, has alleged that leading food manufacturers are guilty of "large scale misbranding and misinformation" by claiming that their food contained zero trans-fats even though tests showed that they have heavy doses of it. Most popular "junk foods contain very high levels of trans-fats, salts and sugar - which inevitably lead to severe ill health and diseases like obesity and diabetes," the...