"India lives in several centuries at the same time. Somehow we manage to progress and regress simultaneously." Arundhati Roy Controversies, protests and violence have marred land acquisition for projects in India. Protests against acquiring agricultural land, inappropriate compensation or environmental impact have been the main reasons for these protests. In most cases, the protests are by farmers who are hardly compensated after their fertile agricultural land is taken over in for...

Posco, the world's fourth largest steel maker, was in January ranked among a global list of 100 companies that will last for the next 100 years. Interestingly, governance, transparency and capacity to handle environment-related issues are taken into account in selecting these 100 companies "Posco will not only last the next 100 years, but will go beyond, and India will play a big part in our story of survival and growth", CK...

Nine of 10 mud-eating children are in the last stage of malnutrition. Eight of 10 people are deprived of every national social-security net and live with starvation and hunger. The average life span is 40 In April, the Hindustan Times revealed acute deprivation in the Uttar Pradesh village of Ganne, part of the former constituency of India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru.   Now, a Supreme Court inquiry team that visited the area...

Thirty years ago, a department of environment was set up in the Central government; 25 years ago, this was upgraded into a full-fledged ministry of environment and forests. As we mark these anniversaries, it must be said that the ministers in charge of this ministry have generally been incompetent, or malign, or both. Some might make an exception for Maneka Gandhi, who was minister of state for the environment between...

The government has a panoply of legislative measures that can counter Maoists more than strengthening security measures against the ‘criminals’. Principal among these is the provision in paragraph 3 of Part A of the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution which vests in the Centre the right to ‘issue directions’ to states with regard to administration in the Maoist-affected tribal areas. Invoking this provision becomes imperative in light of the failure of...