-The Hindu   The former Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court, A.P. Shah, on Friday criticised the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB), the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) and the Nuclear Power Corporation of India (NPCIL) for their “half-hearted approach” to the ongoing public hearing on the safety, viability and cost efficiency of nuclear energy. Mr. Shah is heading a ‘People's Tribunal' along with former Justice S.D. Pandit, which is conducting...

The draft Communal Violence Bill, prepared by a Working Group (WG) of the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC), goes beyond existing legislation in four significant ways: it recognises identity-based or targeted crimes and organised mass violence as special offences, while placing accountability of public officials at the heart of the law, with varying penalties for dereliction of duty. Finally, it provides for the creation of a National Authority and...

-The Hindu   Orissa High Court today issued notices to the State and Central governments and Posco India on a PIL alleging illegal forest clearance granted in favour of the company for a steel plant in Jagatsinghpur district. A division bench of Chief Justice V Gopal Gowda and Justice B N Mohapatra of the HC issued the notices after preliminary hearing on a PIL and adjourned the matter to be heard again...

Environmentalist Ashish Kothari was a member of the Inter-Ministerial Committee (constituted by Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF) and Ministry of Tribal Affairs) to review the implementation of the Forest Rights Act (FRA). The committee, headed by Dr N C Saxena submitted its report recently to the Central government. During the course of its work the committee visited Odisha to assess the performance of the FRA there, particularly in the...

What is rural and what is urban is largely an artefact of definition and relative. See the table below. Most of India's 'rural' population resides in villages that contain between 500 and 5,000 inhabitants. Some argue that in other countries, many of these villages would be classified as urban. These studies point out that if India were to be a little more liberal in its definition of urban areas (minimum...