Samiti has written to Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh Posco protesters say the area was a forest from 1930 and not from 1961 They refute Orissa government's stand of “other traditional forest dwellers' South Korean giant Posco's integrated steel plant in Orissa could face another hurdle as the palli sabhas (local bodies set up to determine forest rights under the Forest Rights Act) of Dhinkia, Gobindpur and nearby villages plan to approve several hundred...

Marked 7 in severity and reclassified as a ‘major accident' The nuclear radiation crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan was reclassified on Tuesday as a “major accident” with the same worst-case rating as the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. However, Japanese authorities quickly sought to reassure the international community about the continuing efforts to end the Fukushima crisis that was mainly triggered by natural disasters. Chernobyl, in contrast, was seen more primarily...

Orissa, which has already ordered a CBI probe into allegations of rampant corruption in the rural jobs scheme, has also formed a group to monitor the scheme's working in the state, a senior official said Wednesday. S.K. Lohani, director of special project of the Panchayati Raj department, said the government would also examine the best practices being followed by other states in the execution of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment...

This is India’s Tahrir square, read one of the tweets soon after the campaign against corruption succeeded last week and forced the government to accept the demands of social activist Anna Hazare to announce a committee for considering a new Lokpal Bill against corruption. After watching widespread public demonstrations in Tunisia, Egypt and other Middle-East countries to rid their countries of dictators, there was a frisson of excitement among our socially...

The Centre will come up with a new National Water Policy next year that will address the issues of water scarcity, management and conservation, Union Water Resources Minister Salman Khurshid said here on Monday. The Ministry has already undertaken an exercise to review the National Water Policy of 2002, and is holding consultations with various stakeholders on the new policy, which would take on board issues relating to climate change. Addressing the...