As the commons come under increasing assault, academics, practitioners and policymakers come together to devise ways to protect shared resources On a cold January night in Hyderabad, a fortnight ago, Jairam Ramesh, Minister for Environment and Forests, was led to an open-air dinner by folk drummers and body-painted tiger dancers as an appreciative audience of international academics and grassroots workers cheered and milled around him. Ramesh had become the toast of...

Mining will hurt biodiversity and discourage development of coal technology If coal mining is allowed in heavily forested areas today, it could deprive the country of a strategic energy reserve for the future, according to the Environment Ministry. It would also go against the Forest Conservation Act, invite judicial intervention, hurt biodiversity and discourage the development of coal technology. These are among the arsenal of arguments unsheathed by the Ministry to counter...

Coal Minister Sriprakash Jaiswal today said a Group of Ministers on Coal will meet within a week to try and iron out the vexed issue of "go" and 'no-go' areas in coal blocks. "The Group of Ministers will meet in the next three-four days or within a week to deliberate on issues like 'go' and 'no-go', among others," Jaiswal told reporters on the sidelines of an Assocham event here. Last year, the...

To its credit, the ministry under Jairam Ramesh is no longer the money-making racket it once was. But its activism often resembles regulatory overreach The decision by the Union ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) to give a conditional green signal to the $12 billion Posco steel project in Orissa is exquisitely timed. It will hopefully send out a strong signal that India continues to be open for business and environmental...

NGOs To No Go’s     * NGOs have mushroomed; so have instances of misappropriation of funds     * Not disclosing expenditure and receipts; nor revealing who funds them     * Not setting up NGO for the task it was funded for     * Flocking to 'hot' topics, inviting accusations of singing to industrialists’ tunes     * For every NGO supporting a cause, another springs up against that cause *** NGO numbers     * 3.3 million Number of NGOs...