Vedanta has initiated efforts to get mining rights in other areas of the state to run its 1-million-tonne plant at Lanjigarh but the Congress has vowed to block the handover of at least one of the alternative sites. The company’s rethink crystallised after Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi hinted on August 26 that the Niyamgiri hills would not be given for mining to Vedanta Alumina. During the past two days, the chief...

Agitators to stage indefinite dharna outside mini secretariat The agitating farmers of Gorakhpur-Kumharia village of Haryana have decided to stage an indefinite dharna outside the mini secretariat at Fatehabad, over 300 km from here, to protest against the acquisition of over 1,400 acres by the government for a nuclear power plant there. “We are not against technology; we just don't want it to be at the cost of farmers. We will convey...

From retired and serving babus to journalists to even RTI activists and academicians, everyone seems to be angling for the posts of chief information commissioner (CIC) and information commissioners (ICs). In a delicious irony, all the names have come out in an RTI reply. Replying to an RTI plea filed by Mannish Bhatnagar, the department of personnel and training said 32 names were received for the posts of CIC and...

A steady rise in the awareness levels about the Right to Information Act (RTI) among the general public has forced babus to adopt the use of multi-coloured stick-notes (small glued sheets or post-its) on all files and petitions processed at the state secretariat. This way, there will neither be any record of favouritism shown to any issue nor evidence of any irregularity in the speedy clearance of a certain file...

N C Saxena, who led the committee which recommended against permitting mining of the Niyamgiri hills in Orissa, says the same approach should be adopted for Andhra Pradesh’s mammoth Polavaram hydro project, too. If there is violation of the Forest Rights Act (FRA) there, too, it should not be allowed, as that is the law of the land, Saxena told Business Standard. The Polavaram dam being constructed on the Godavari river by...