The government is pushing ahead with the Jaitapur nuclear power project in Maharashtra, with plans for a new compensation package for displaced local persons, and will ensure that all safety conditions are adhered to in the 9,900 MW project, a minister said on Tuesday. "A generous compensation package had been worked out by state government and NPCIL ( Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited) and will be announced soon," minister of...

Union Minister for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh has launched a “bioremediation technology” project to curb pollution caused by sewerage and industrial effluents in the Buddah Nallah of Ludhiana in Punjab. The project is estimated to cost Rs. 16 crore in the initial phase and it will be borne by The National River Conservation Directorate of the Union government. It is expected to take one year for completion. The project will provide...

Children prefer snacking on chips, burgers, noodles, pasta, samosas and other junk foods being sold in schools canteens, leading to lifestyle diseases, an ASSOCHAM survey has found. Releasing the survey, “Rise in consumption pattern of junk food in school”, ASSOCHAM Health Committee chairman Dr. B. K. Rao said there was a need to improve children's nutrition by setting health standards for snacks and beverages sold in school canteens. The survey was conducted...

A transparent assessment of the costs and risks associated with India's ambitious nuclear plans must be made before any ground is broken at Jaitapur or elsewhere. You really have to hand it to the nuclear industry. In any other sphere of the economy, a major industrial disaster is likely to have adverse, long-term financial consequences for the company or companies whose product or activity was involved in the accident, regardless of...

When a farmer named Praveen Gawankar and two neighbors began a protest four years ago against a proposed nuclear power plant here in this coastal town, they were against it mainly for not-in-my-backyard reasons. They stood to lose mango orchards, cashew trees and rice fields, as the government forcibly acquired 2,300 acres to build six nuclear reactors — the biggest nuclear power plant ever proposed anywhere. But now, as a nuclear...