Chairman of the expert team of the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) Naresh Dayal said on Friday that prima facie there was no large-scale destruction of forest land for the controversial hill city project, Lavasa. Speaking to journalists on the third and final day of inspection, Mr. Dayal said that contradictory to the allegations made by social Activists Medha Patkar and Anna Hazare, Pune's water supply would not be affected...

“Mistakes are obviously committed while undertaking big projects and we are open to corrections,” said Lavasa Corporation Limited (LCL) Chairman Ajit Gulabchand for the time first time on Friday since the controversy over the hill city started. However, he added that “these corrections should not make business impossible.” Mr. Gulabchand was speaking to the media after meeting a team of experts from the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) which was...

In the end, Gangula Tadangi succumbed to tuberculosis. The Kondh Adivasi’s life could have been saved if he had made it to the hospital on time. But he was in judicial custody at Koraput district jail in southern Odisha for allegedly “waging war against the Indian State”. During his last moments, Tadangi, 25, is said to have whispered something in Kondh. But nobody could make out anything because no one...

Maharashtra home minister R R Patil refused to provide police protection to RTI Activists but he was quick with a special security cover for former Shiv Sena leader Kiran Pawaskar, soon after he joined NCP. With this, Pawaskar joins a club of 25-odd politicians, who don't hold any official post, but have been granted special security by the home department run by an NCP minister. Like Pawaskar, all those who...

If home minister P Chidambaram’s recent letter to West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee is any indication, it has taken the Union home ministry seven years to realise that arming civilians to fight Naxalites is a bad idea. How much longer will it take for them to realise that the current paramilitary-based approach in Chhattisgarh is similarly bound to fail? From 2003 onwards, the home ministry has followed a policy of...