-Frontline Farmers protest against the Central clearance for coal bed methane exploration in Mannargudi, Tamil Nadu, as they fear it will devastate agriculture in Tiruvarur and Thanjavur districts.  THE woes of the delta farmers of Tamil Nadu are far from over. While the Cauvery tangle continues unresolved, they fear the proposed multi-crore project for commercial exploration and exploitation of coal bed methane (CBM) in the Mannargudi block of Tiruvarur district will prove...

-The Indian Express Steel minister Beni Prasad Verma has cautioned environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan against holding up clearances for SAIL’s iron ore mines in Orissa and Jharkhand, saying this would force the state-owned steel giant to scale down operations and could stoke Naxal activity in the tribal region. Verma’s November 30 missive to Natarajan comes close on the heels of SAIL’s top brass sounding the alarm on the delays in environmental clearance...

-PTI Vedanta group is likely to close its one million tonnes alumina refinery at Odisha's Lanjigarh from Wednesday, a move which would impact about 7,000 jobs in the Eastern state. The mining conglomerate, which runs the alumina refinery through an unlisted subsidiary, Vedanta Aluminium Ltd (VAL), had given a closure notice to the state government three months back citing severe shortage of bauxite as the primary reason for the shutdown. "Suspension of operations...

-Reuters India’s efforts to clamp down on illegal mining have handed a $15 billion lifeline to global iron ore giants, and there could be more to come. Steps taken by central and state authorities to clean up the mining and export of iron ore have shut down output in two key producing states, slashing shipments and forcing steel mills to import a raw material the country has in abundance. Now the Shah Commission,...

-The Economic Times It has never happened since Independence. May be not even in the last 1,000 years what happened during October 2011-September 2012. India exported 10 million tonnes of rice, valued at around $6 billion, becoming the largest exporter of rice, replacing Thailand and Vietnam, generally the two largest exporters of rice. This is now known to many in rice circles. But what is little known is that in 2011-12, India also emerged...