ENVIRONMENT MINISTER DISREGARDS FINDINGS OF HIS OWN REVIEW AND STATUTORY CLEARANCES COMMITTEES The following is the statement issued to the press by Abhay Sahoo, President of the POSCO Pratirodh Sangram Samiti (PPSS), and Prashant Paikeay, the PPSS spokesperson, on January 31, 2010. The decision of Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh to give a comprehensive okay to the POSCO India Steel Power Production-Captive Port project, based on some additional conditions, is nothing short of...

Many Indian laws do not reflect modern and enlightened concepts of justice and require major revision. The recent campaign in support of Dr. Binayak Sen has received much publicity. The mainstream media has enunciated his cause and dissected the evidence, conviction and judgment. Amnesty International argued that the case violated international standards for a fair trial. While Dr. Sen's conviction has received much attention, there is a need to foreground the...

Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act is showing better success of creating assets — ponds or roads — in the two Left ruled states. BJP-ruled states  Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh are laggards, but some Congress states such as Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan, too, are at the bottom. “Real successes of MGNREGA is when land resources are regenerated letting lakhs of marginal farmers go back to agriculture — bringing down the need...

No major investment in dam projects before land acquisition, relief and rehabilitation sorted out Project should be cleared only after distribution network is provided For years, it has been felt that engineers of the Irrigation and Water Resources Departments are far removed from human considerations while planning and executing a project. This is why concerns at displacement and rehabilitation of project-affected people and farmers for whom the water is meant are not...

A Supreme Court judgment projects the historical thesis that India is largely a country of old immigrants and that pre-Dravidian aborigines, ancestors of the present Adivasis, rather than Dravidians, were the original inhabitants of India. If North America is predominantly made up of new immigrants, India is largely a country of old immigrants, which explains its tremendous diversity. It follows that tolerance and equal respect for all communities and sects are...