-The Times of India Recognizing that the plethora of dams built and planned in the Ganga basin could almost empty the river of its waters in the winter season, an inter-ministerial group has recommended that the projects be re-engineered to maintain 30-50% of water flow in the lean period of December-March. The group headed by Planning Commission member B K Chaturvedi also recommended that electricity production in the existing and upcoming dams...

The Fifth Schedule of the Constitution, the 73rd amendment and the landmark PESA and Forest Rights Act (FRA) have progressively acknowledged the rights, and special powers of the Gram Sabha in deciding developmental projects as well as playing a role in protecting the ecology and forests. But a clutch of clever exemptions in recent months are ensuring that centralised authorities take away the same powers through the back door, without routing...

-South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers & People   The Expert Approval Committee has zero rejection in six years The Union Ministry of Environment and Forests’ (MoEF) Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) on River Valley and hydroelectric projects (RVP) has considered a total of 262 hydropower and irrigation projects in close to six years since April 2007 when the new committee was set up to its latest, 63rd meeting in December 2012. An...

-The Hindu In an atmosphere of mistrust of the government, only an independent safety regulatory mechanism can counter the scaremongering against civilian nuclear power I work at an institution funded by the Department of Atomic Energy (which, however, does no nuclear research: the DAE funds a wide variety of institutions and areas in science). About a year ago, I had an e-mail from a journalist who wondered why scientists (including colleagues at...

-The Hindu After standing in waist to neck-deep water for the past two weeks as part of their jal satyagraha , oustees of the Omkareshwar dam project have successfully managed to make the Madhya Pradesh Government sit up and take notice. Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan has deputed Industries Minister Kailash Vijayvargiya and Tribal Affairs Minister Vijay Shah to tour the site of the jal satyagraha and work out a solution. The...