Two months ago, Cabinet approved a draft law that seeks to create a better legislative environment to attract investments in mining and ease land acquisition through higher compensation to people displaced by projects. This show of goodwill could help the government win some hearts in troubled landscapes of Orissa and Karnataka.  But mining companies are not entirely convinced as they have to pay higher royalties and want changes to be made...

Hydropower projects in tribal Kinnaur and Lahaul-Spiti district are witnessing stiff opposition from local residents. But their protests are going unheard due to lack of political will. Tribals are up in arms to save their fertile lands and natural source of irrigation, but their concerns have gone unheard in government corridors, as the state government is approving projects one after another in tribal areas. On Friday, over 200 residents of Tindi...

-BBC   A judge in India has sentenced eight men to death and 20 others to life imprisonment for three so-called honour killings that took place in 1991. The men were found guilty of murdering a Dalit boy and a girl from a higher caste who had eloped together, as well as the boy's cousin. All three were set alight and hanged, the court in Uttar Pradesh state heard. A BBC correspondent says the sentences...

Warning that delays in wage payments were crippling the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) in Chhattisgarh's Maoist-affected districts, Union Minister for Rural Development Jairam Ramesh outlined his Ministry's latest attempts to jumpstart development in these areas. In the past, Mr. Ramesh has spoken of prioritising development in the country's 60 ‘Left Wing Extremism' [LWE] districts as a crucial prong in his government's battle against the guerilla army of...

The Congress rules state and the centre, but money set aside for Rajasthan’s malnourished tribal children does not reach dysfunctional crèches and other urgent needs Three-year-old Bagmati Sahariya lies listlessly on a string cot inside an unlit mud-and-thatched home in Baran district’s Amrod village, 292km south of Rajasthan’s capital Jaipur. When her father Janki Lal (36), a daily wage labourer, lifts her on his shoulder, her bony hands and legs dangle...