Despite crores being spent in the name of conservation and Project Tiger, illegal mining activity is back in full gear in the protected area of Sariska Wildlife Sanctuary. "Rampant mining is going on at Jaisinghpura, Malana, Goverdhanpura, Palpura and Jamwa Ramgarh, in spite of the Supreme Court's 1991 order banning mining in the area. After SC's order, 215 mines were closed. But recently, some of them have restarted activity in the...

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) held a protest to demand the tabling of the Land Acquisition Amendment Act 2007 in the forthcoming winter session of the Parliament. This was part of the nationwide protests by the party. The kisan morcha of the party under the leadership of national president Om Prakash Dhankar held the protest at Khuda Alisher. The party has demanded that certain amendments be made in the Bill before...

The Aadhaar or UID project has grave implications for every Indian. It will enable the government to profile every citizen and track their movements and transactions. There is no guarantee that intimate personal information -- pre-existing illnesses, romantic relationships etc -- won't be shared with other agencies, warns Praful Bidwai. An elaborate charade has begun with the rolling out of the first Aadhaar unique identity numbers in a tribal district of Maharashtra by...

The mountainous state-owned food stocks lying in the open and rotting in the rain are in stark conflict with a failing public distribution system , hunger, malnutrition and high food prices. The poor management of food stocks provoked the Supreme Court to transgress into executive domain when, on August 12, the court made certain directions like limiting procurement to covered warehousing capacity and distributing the rotting foodgrains free of cost...

Apni kheti, apna khaad / Apna beej, apna swaad (Our own farm, our own fertiliser / Our own seeds, our own taste) -- Prakash Singh Raghuvanshi. A farmer from Tandia village in Varanasi has a solution to India's burgeoning food crisis. In a land where poverty, hunger, malnutrition and farmer suicides are rampant, Prakash Singh Raghuvanshi's innovation could work wonders. He has single-handedly developed a number of high yielding, nutritious...