-The Hindu Business Line To address the water crisis, recycling plants can work as PPPs and industry should switch to using such water Some stark facts: India has 18 per cent of world's population with only 4 per cent of total usable water resources. Annual per capita availability of water has declined by 15 per cent in the past 10 years and is estimated to fall to as low as 1140 m3/year...

-The Business Standard Forest Rights Act being reinterpreted to avoid amendment Led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's office, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government is discussing possible ways to do away with the mandatory requirement of securing consent from tribal gram sabhas (village councils) before cutting down their forests for industrial purposes. The deliberations, on among various ministries, are for zeroing in on such a way that the requirement is removed without...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The government has decided to make it mandatory for over 5,000 scientists, working in different central agencies including the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), to undertake 12 hours of lecture classes in an academic year in public-funded schools and colleges across the country. Announcing the decision, Union science and technology minister Jitendra Singh said it would be "mandatory" for the scientists to formally take...

-The Hindustan Times Former Union environment minister Jairam Ramesh set a cat among the pigeons, in his inimitable style, at a recent national conference on climate and sustainable development at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) in Mumbai. He asserted that India would be "the last man standing at Paris", referring to the United Nations climate negotiations which will culminate in France in December 2015. India's current stance was "inflexible...

-Down to Earth   BJP thinks undoing labour laws will spur a manufacturing boom. Even now workers enjoy little protection or social security In recent weeks, the pink press has been singing paeans to a new star in the political firmament, one whom they see as a worthy disciple of the man who gave us the "Gujarat model" of development. The media's new discovery is none other than Vasundhara Raje, the Rajasthan...