Unfettered coal mining is causing unchecked underground fires that threaten human habitation and the environment, writes geologist Dr Nitish Priyadarshi. The haunting inscription that marks the gates of hell in Dante's Inferno could well be true for Jharkhand. For, the underground fires that have been raging in the coalfields of this state over several years are now beginning to engulf its thickly inhabited areas as well. An underground mine fire that has...

The Supreme Court on May 7 ruled that natural resources were national assets that belonged to the people and were ideally exploited by public sector undertakings. This obviously implies that local communities, including tribals, living on mineralised land, enjoy entitlements but not prescriptive ownership rights to such national assets. This is an important reiterative clarification defining mineral rights in Fifth Schedule areas that are currently in contention. Whether PSUs should...

Why is Madhya Pradesh ranked so low in the Millennium Development Goals like child and maternal mortality, extreme poverty, hunger and safe drinking water? Social sector allocation has increased only during the last few years. Before 2005, there wasn’t enough money allocated to it when compared to poverty alleviation schemes. Also, it takes time for the benefits of the allocations to reach people and for real change to manifest itself....

The India growth story is enviable. Despite plaguing problems, India has emerged stronger and resilient to the global crisis so far. India is expected to be the world's fastest growing economy by 2018, according to Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), the research arm of the Economist magazine. India, the second largest growing economy will overtake China as the fastest growing major economy with an average of eight per cent in the...

A tussle between the Chhattisgarh government and the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) over an elephant reserve has reached the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). And the dispute is emblematic of the way the richly forested state is hurtling to get the developed tag by shaving off its pristine tree cover. Since 2004, the Chhattisgarh government has signed 102 memorandum of understandings (MOUs) with industrial houses for production of steel,...