While Union Power Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde announced on Monday that the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) had given the green signal for the 4,000-MW Ultra-Mega Power Project (UMPP) at Bedabahal in Orissa, the clearance has come with a catch. The MoEF has imposed “stringent conditions'' for coal mining including scrapping another proposed power project and rejection of mining in a coal block allotted to NTPC Ltd. The UMPP had...

The agitation against land acquisition for the Posco steel plant intensified in this seaside gram panchayat in Jagatsinghpur district on Sunday, with the villagers damaging an approach road to the area earmarked for the project. Led by Abhay Sahu, chairman of the Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti, which has been spearheading the protest since July 2005, more than 150 people from different hamlets in Dhinkia went out with spades and other tools...

India’s rulers have found a new vocation – maligning environmentalists and questioning the very idea of regulating industry for pollution. Thus, faced with criticism of Lavasa, an artificial gated city of the super-rich near Pune, in which his family has invested crores, Agriculture Minister, Sharad Pawar, lashed out at well-known activist Medha Patkar and other “vested interests” for obstructing this “pioneering” project. Lavasa’s promoters built the project without seeking environmental clearance...

Activists hope that a popular agitation against the setting up of a factory to manufacture asbestos products in the eastern Bihar state will result in a nationwide ban on the large-scale import into this country of the deadly mineral fibre. Following six months of agitation against the setting up of the factory in the Chainpur-Bishunpur area of Bihar’s Muzzaffarpur district, state chief minister Nitish Kumar sought to lay blame on the...

The Environment Ministry's clearance of projects such as Posco, Jaitapur and Lavasa will cause havoc in our gravely endangered environment. EVEN the worst pessimist could not have imagined that the January 31 order of the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) approving the South Korean-origin company Posco's steel project in Orissa would be as bad as it actually is. Construction of the Rs.54,000-crore steel plant, its captive power unit and private...