-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...

-The Hindu     Environment Ministry rejects Vedanta's plan to mine Niyamgiri The Union Environment Ministry has taken a decision in two high profile cases, rejecting the forest clearance for Vedanta's bauxite mining project in Niyamgiri Hills of Odisha, and renewing the stand-alone environmental clearance for Posco's eight million tonnes per annum steel plant. The rejection of Vedanta's proposal to dig in the Niyamgiri hills came after 12 village councils of Dongriya Kondh tribal groups...

-The Hindu     Greenpeace India said the Power Ministry had informed CBI that it did not recommend Hindalco for the Mahan coal block. Questioning the non-transparent manner in which the Mahan coal block was allocated, Greenpeace India on Tuesday demanded cancellation of the coal block and sought a thorough enquiry into the role of Essar Power and the Madhya Pradesh government in the whole issue. The demand by Greenpeace comes close on the heels...

-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...