For nuclear plant at Jaitapur, only site clearance is granted Environment and development have to be balanced Reacting to Reports on Monsanto's admission of pest resistance to its transgenic cotton, Union Minister of State for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh on Saturday said the issue needed to be properly examined. The Minister said he had also seen an earlier report from the Central Institute for Cotton Research, Nagpur, which pointed out insect resistance...

Rights activist Subash Chandra Agrawal has filed an application before the Central Public Information Officer, Prime Minister's Office (PMO) seeking complete information together with related documents/correspondence/file notings on the Congress president Sonia Gandhi's reported opposition for amendments to the Right to Information Act. Mr. Agrawal filed the application following Reports about differences between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Ms. Sonia Gandhi on amendments to the RTI Act. There was stiff resistance...

One looks forward to the Finance Minister's budget speech with a hope that it spells some new major initiatives and schemes for development, and that it might promise any major allocation of resources to any sector, besides fresh tax proposals. In the case of education sector, one might feel disappointed at the proposals made in the Union budget for 2010-11 on both counts. No new initiatives are proposed; no major...

A three-hour drive from Delhi a medieval drama is playing out. A khap — or caste — panchayat in Haryana’s Bhiwani district has asked a man and his family to leave the village because he has married a woman of the same “gotra”. The family sought police protection after the panchayat threatened a social boycott and pronounced a ban on the sale of their land, saying that it would be...

The State Government today told the Orissa High Court that allegations of farmers’ suicide due to crop loss are not true. As per an earlier direction by a division bench of the High Court comprising Justices IM Quddusi and Sanju Panda, State Government submitted its counter to the writ petition filed by Jati Pradhan, secretary to Balangir Zilla Krushak Mahasangha who had alleged farmer suicides in different parts of Orissa. In its...