-The Hindustan Times   With the Supreme Court upholding the constitutional validity of Right to Education Act, the government today dismissed suggestions that the burden which private schools will have to bear to implement it will be passed on to the students. The RTE Act mandates the schools to provide free education upto 25 per cent of the students from economic weaker section between 6 to 14 years of age.   "I do not...

So what if it was the largest-ever FDI in India? The law finally caught up with it on 30 March 2012, when the National Green Tribunal suspended POSCO’s environmental clearance and ordered a fresh review. We can celebrate the outcome in this day and cynical age: It is still possible, though not easy, to get environmental justice in this country. Since June 2005, when the agreement between the Government of Orissa...

The government says area under forests has been increasing for the last 13 years. ET finds this is the outcome of statistical jugglery and the use of flawed definitions by India's forest bureaucracy. The bald truth is India's forests are in serious decline, both in numbers and in health. In February, the latest instalment of a little environmental kabuki played out when the Forest Survey of India released its biennial report...

Move could save banks significant money spent on record-checking and documentation In what could usher in an era of paper-less, real-time authentication, the finance ministry is looking into allowing online Aadhaar authentication as a valid proof of identity for opening bank accounts. The ministry is considering an amendment to the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, or PMLA, to recognize online Aadhaar data to satisfy know-your-customer (KYC) requirements. This will pave the way for...

Weather events such as extreme temperatures and drought caused global agricultural losses of 11.4 billion dollars in 2011, while 12 million hectares of farmland are lost to land degradation every year, and unsustainable agricultural practices contribute to the emission of greenhouse gases. These and other data provided by a report released Wednesday in London by leading scientists from 13 countries raise the question of how to curb the environmental crisis, guarantee...