-The Telegraph The wheat has to be saved, so joust over jute. Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee today assured Opposition leaders he had asked Bengal to increase production of jute bags after shortage of facilities to store this year’s bumper wheat crop rocked the Lok Sabha. Mukherjee said he had spoken to Bengal industries minister Partha Chatterjee and urged him to ensure uninterrupted production to ensure that the supply of jute sacks increased by...

The Union government has decided to intensify its operations against the CPI (Maoist) by launching the third and fourth phase of its multi-winged, coordinated stratagem to squeeze the expanse of what the Naxalites now refer to as the ‘ring of fire' (part of the red corridor). However, several ministries are not extending any cooperation. Union Minister for Rural Development Jairam Ramesh raised the issue in his letter to Prime Minister Manmohan...

Reluctance to make reports public could erode public confidence in government’s decisions, says CIC The Central Information Commission (CIC) has directed India’s nuclear power plant operator to publicize safety analysis reports of the Kudankulam atomic power plant within a month. In a contentious two-year dispute between environmentalists and the nuclear power establishment, the apex information commission, in an order on its website, has said that the reluctance to make the reports public...

Several activists have asked the Planning Commission to take into account cultural norms if it wanted to ensure success of minority welfare schemes. To make his point, Shabnam Hashmi, of the NGO Anhad, cited as example the plan panel’s proposal of giving bicycles to girls from the minority community where school attendance is low. “This,” Hashmi said, “shows the complete lack of understanding of cultural norms in Muslim areas.” While bicycles provide mobility...

The National Green Tribunal's decision to suspend the environmental clearance given to Posco vindicates the project's critics. ON March 30, the Principal Bench of the newly formed National Green Tribunal (NGT) delivered a momentous decision suspending the environmental clearance (EC) given to the South Korean transnational corporation, Posco, to set up an integrated steel plant at Paradip in Odisha's Jagatsinghpur district. The former Union Minister for Environment and Forests, Jairam...