Three years after the entire tiger population of the Panna Tiger Reserve was decimated, the Madhya Pradesh government has neither been able to fix responsibility for the disaster, nor has it handed over the enquiry to the Central Bureau of Investigation inspite of requests from the Ministry of Environment and forests and even the Prime Minister's Office.

SHILLONG: A joint investigation committee (JIC) comprising State Chief Conservator of Forest and Additional Principal Chief Conservator of Forest from the Union Ministry of Forest and Environment, Regional Office has been constituted to relook into the alleged random exploitation of forest land by the cement industries in Jaintia Hills district.

The constitution of the JIC came even after the State constituted high level committee’s (HLC) findings submitted in November 2011 acknowledged that the cement industries have intruded into the forest land.

New Delhi Smelling a scam in the bidding process for the National Solar Mission, Sunita Narain-led Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) on Wednesday said that front companies floated by Lanco Infratech had grabbed not less than nine projects of 235 mw under the mission. This is about 40 % of the projects totalling 620 mw auctioned by the government during the first batch of the first phase of the solar mission.

Goa's mining industry is facing a “crisis of reputation” following a series of writ petitions, a leaked PAC report and an inquiry by a commission.

SHILLONG: The RTI findings on the cement plants in Jaintia Hills has exposed the connivance of the various Government departments including the Jaintia Hills Autonomous District Council (JHADC) and the traditional bodies which allowed the cements plants to carry out mining inside the forest areas in gross violation of the Forest Conservation Act.

SHILLONG: The Meghalaya Right to Information Movement (MRTIM) would be holding a public hearing on the RTI findings relating to the activities of the cement plants based in Jaintia Hills district at Don Bosco Youth Centre on Thursday at 11 am.

The public hearing comes at the time when the Government is under serious scanner after the High Level Committee (HLC) in its report revealed that the cement plants in Jaintia Hills are carrying out mining of limestone in ‘thick forest areas’ which is in clear violation of the Forest Conservation Act, 1980.

NGOs have claimed that recent reports suggesting that one of the pictorial warnings for tobacco products resembles footballer John Terry could be an attempt by the manufacturers to scuttle the pictorial warnings once again.

In a recent RTI filed by the Voluntary Health Association of India (VHAI), the issue was brought to the notice of Union health ministry earlier in November by Philip Morris, manufacturer of the leading cigarette brand Marlboro. “However, digging the issue once again now could be a deliberate move by the manufacturers to put the warnings in trouble.”

CHENNAI: As work on the grade separator project at the Anna Arch junction on E V R Salai (Poonamalee High Road) kicks off, close to 10 trees opposite the Aringnar Anna Government hospital of Indian Medicine were pulled down in the last few days.

Six fully grown trees were chopped down on Tuesday to clear the way for the Rs 117-crore grade separator, which will come as a boon to motorists using the busy intersection as it would facilitate smooth movement of vehicles on

MUMBAI: The high level of radiation emitted by three unauthorized mobile towers atop Victor Shelter building poses a health hazard for neighbouring Nilesh society residents at Kandarpada in Dahisar (W), says IIT-Bombay professor Dr Girish Kumar. The radiation level in the New Nilesh society flat was measured by Wilcom Technologies Pvt Ltd, an IIT-B incubated firm.

The combined radiation measured in the living room, kitchen, master-bedroom and another bedroom, especially near windows, was very high, the researcher said.

Ever since Anna Hazare’s call for a strong Lokpal bill reached fever-pitch in autumn, and the government bought time with ostensibly conciliatory moves, everyone had been waiting for ‘the due process’ to bear fruit. But the 30-member standing committee chaired by Congress MP Abhishek Manu Singhvi, set up to frame a draft bill, is still struggling to evolve anything like a consensus. As we went to press on December 1, an emergency meeting of the committee ended in a stalemate on various contentious issues, with the final touches on the draft still pending.