The growing of tea invariably replaces biodiversity-rich tropical forests with a beautiful, but single species (monoculture). Soil erosion, competition for water, pollution from fertilizers and the requirement of firewood to fuel tea driers, are some of the main environmental concerns that accompany commercial tea cultivation.

By following the Sustainable Agriculture Network Standard, tea growers can pro-actively address social and environmental challenges. By complying with the requirements of this standard, tea estates can obtain "Rainforest Alliance Certification".

The State-run National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC) and Russian steel maker Severstal are likely to sign a final agreement to set up a steel plant in Bellary by the end of this year.

“Both companies have appointed legal consultants to study the project structure, and based on inputs, both firms will sign an agreement,” N K Nanda, Chairman and Managing Director, NMDC, told Deccan Herald on Thursday.

Japanese carmaker Honda may roll out its first diesel car in India in the first half of 2013 as the fresh increase in petrol price is widely expected to dent demand for petrol cars, three people familiar with the development said. “The earlier plan was to bring in the diesel cars by 2014, but with the widening disparity in petrol and diesel prices, the company is compelled to push harder to bring in its diesel cars earlier,” one of them said.

Many projects in the country may be languishing because of land acquisition problems but the Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation (DFCC) has over the past three years acquired 70 per cent of the 10,000 hectares it requires to construct exclusive railway lines for goods traffic. The area acquired is more than half as large as the 18,500-hectare Kolkata metropolitan city.

Nissan Motor announced Wednesday it will launch global production of an all-electric van, the e-NV200, as early as next year in the Spanish city of Barcelona, creating 700 jobs.

The Japanese carmaker said it would invest 100 million euros ($126 million) in Spain to start production in its 2013 financial year at its Barcelona plant, which already makes the fuel-powered NV200.

Chandigarh: A senior official of the Chandigarh Administration on Monday urged the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) to draft an industrial policy for the city. Stating that the Draft Industrial Policy 2009 had become old, Home Secretary-cum-Industries Secretary Anil Kumar further said that the time was ripe for a fresh policy draft. “ Let us focus on a few key areas and draft a policy to give vision and guidance to the industry in Chandigarh.

Major energy savings in the steel re-rolling sector and in the small tea processing enterprise, initiated by the UNDP, has seen a substantive increase in energy efficiency in these industries.

UNDP, India, country director Caitlin Wiesen, told this newspaper, “Intervention in the steel re-rolling industry has seen efficiency levels go up between 30-40 per cent.”

Calcutta, May 22: The impasse over the expansion and modernisation of the SAIL’s IISCO Steel Plant at Burnpur appears to have been resolved with the company tacitly agreeing to give jobs to a set of aggrieved land-losers. The commissioning of the Rs 17,000-crore project — the biggest expansion initiative in Bengal — had been delayed for months as agitators had refused to relocate a deity (Jhorabudi) from the site as SAIL was not accepting their demand for jobs.