World Bank arm finances polluting steel mill in Jharkhand As the train slowly approaches Jamshedpur town in Jharkhand, the sky begins to turn reddish. It is because of the thick red dust emanating from an industrial unit, surrounded by heaps of industrial solid waste comprising unburnt coal char and flyash. The unit is a medium-scale iron and steel mill belonging to conglomerate Usha Martin. Spread over 120 hectares, the mill became operational...

Chhotanagpur Tenancy (CNT) Act-1908 came into existence to safeguard rights of the tribals, especially on their traditional landholdings. It is not very clear how much the Act has been successful in assuring the rights to the traditional dwellers, though it is an open secret that it has denied them access to bank credits, thus hampering them financially. Latest figures suggest that bank loans to Scheduled Tribe and Scheduled Caste have moved...

-Eastern Panorama   It’s been almost two months since a 6.9 magnitude earthquake left the Himalayan state of Sikkim devastated. Nine families of Ralak village in Tingchim Mangshilla Gram Panchayat in the North District of Sikkim are still living in make shift relief camps with the mothers cuddling their children under blankets to give them comfort and warmth in the cold November nights. As snow has already covered the mountains visible from...

The Supreme Court today vacated a 2010 Gauhati High Court order that banned recruitment of elementary school (lower and upper primary) teachers in Assam. This will pave the way for recruitment of some 1,00,000 teachers in the state. The high court had on March 5, 2010, restrained the state from recruiting teachers on a petition that challenged illegal appointments of 3,813 (3,147 in lower primary and 666 in upper primary schools) teachers...

On September 18, Bimola Rai’s world was reduced to rubble. A student of Class III in Bop village in Chungthang block of North District in Sikkim, a Himalayan border state, she was left traumatized when a devastating earthquake of 6.9 magnitude on the Richter scale, flattened her home and school building, located at an altitude of 5,500 feet. Today, Bimola joins 26 other children of her village to walk the four...