A senior forest official from the Centre is visiting Jharkhand tomorrow to review a state proposal to declare Dalma forests and its adjoining areas in the Singhbum region an eco-sensitive zone, a move that has been opposed by Tata Steel. In March, the state forest department had drafted an exhaustive plan to create a protective zone around 10km perimeter of the Dalma forests to protect the area that is a natural...

Congress president Sonia Gandhi will meet Anna Hazare on Saturday, citing a “packed prior schedule” to turn down his request for an appointment today. The anti-graft activist has been parleying with leaders of major political parties in the capital for the past two days and met Bihar rivals Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad. Sources said despite the Congress Working Committee in its meeting last week coming down strongly on Hazare and his...

-The Deccan Herald   "CBI can’t be equated with other agencies." The Union cabinet’s recent decision to exclude the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) from the purview of the Right to Information (RTI) Act is wrong and, as widely suspected, ill-motivated. The CBI has been trying to secure such an exemption for long for wrong reasons. The cabinet has acted according to the wishes of the investigative agency and notified its decision. The...

ASHOK AGARWAL, a Senior Advocate practising in the Supreme Court and the Delhi High Court, has been litigating for the right of education, primarily for those belonging to the weaker sections of society. In fact, even before the actual enactment of the Right to Education Bill, he had campaigned forcefully among policymakers to reinforce the link between out-of-school children and child labour. He was involved in several rounds of discussions...

The Orissa government suspends the land acquisition for the Posco project in the face of stiff opposition from the people. SIX years ago, when the South Korean steel giant Posco arrived in Orissa with the biggest ever foreign direct investment that had come the country's way, it was expected to help rid the economically backward State of its ‘poor' tag and bring prosperity. Posco had won the $12 billion deal at...