<p>Order of the National Green Tribunal (Central Zone Bench, Bhopal) regarding illegal sand mining being done at the Balod Pod sand mine located in Balod district, Chhattisgarh.</p> <p>A report was called
State governments are raising objections about the coverage under the proposed Food Security Bill, saying that covering 75 per cent of the rural population and 50 per cent of urban as advocated by both the draft Bill and the Standing Committee of Parliament is unacceptable. “The Centre is saying that the proposed food Bill will ensure food for all. But in reality, this is not the case,” West Bengal Food Minister Jyotipriya Mullick said. He said the Centre should instead cover all sections of the population under the Bill and there should not be any provision for cash transfers under the Bill.
The Cabinet Committee on Investment ( CCI), in its second meeting, will take up for green nod Coal India Ltd’s (CIL) 20 projects with combined production capacity of 37 million tonne a year, which can fire more than 7,000 MW power generation capacity. Besides, the CCI is also expected to examine environmental hurdles holding up the implementation of three rail projects which are critical for transporting coal from mines located in Orissa, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh.
How will solar energy be made to work in India? As I discussed in my previous article, there are three key challenges. One, how will the country pay for solar energy in a situation where there is no money
The CBI is likely to question representatives of three state government-run public sector undertakings (PSUs) next week in connection with its probe related to the Coalgate scam. According to sources, the state government PSUs who were allocated blocks include Chhattisgarh Mineral Development Corporation Limited, West Bengal Mineral Development Trading Corporation, Jharkhand State Mineral Development Corporation and Maharshtra State Mining Corporation.
The Punjab and Haryana High Court has made it clear that the proxy legal battles against the land acquisition proceedings will not be entertained. Rather, petitions purportedly filed in public interest
Guj CM had written a series of letters to PM since June 2010 seeking additional coal blocks for Guj Mineral Dev Corp The Centre has turned down Gujarat government requests for coal blocks. Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi had written a series of letters to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh since June 2010 seeking additional coal blocks for Gujarat Mineral Development Corporation (GMDC) and allocation of an alternate coal block for the state-run company.
Tells Supreme Court system was not transparent The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has widened its probe in the coal block allocation scam to cover the delay in introduction of bidding. The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government had continued with allocation of blocks through the screening committee route, as the proposal for bidding had been moving back and forth between government departments. CBI had last year limited itself to probing irregularities in the allocation of blocks, without going into the policy issue of bidding.
The newly-formed Cabinet Committee on Investment (CCI) is likely to approve automatic extension of environment clearances when it meets on Thursday, sources said. The move will not only do away with the tedious process of environment and forest clearance, but also free up over 65 million tonne (MT) additional coal annually, according to sources. Last year, the environment ministry had made it mandatory for companies setting up projects to obtain forest clearance (FC) before applying for environment clearance (EC), where diversion of forest land is required. The guideline was later modified, allowing parallel processing for both EC and FC.
INDORE: The World Bank Group has announced the launch of 2013 India Development Marketplace in Madhya Pradesh and pledged $1 million in grants to be awarded on a competitive basis to social enterprises for their development solutions. Development Marketplace, supported by the World Bank, is a competitive grant-based program. It focuses on non-profit and for-profit development solutions that demonstrate innovative and effective ways to address the most pressing social and economic problems impacting the poor and underserved communities. The selected winners are given financial and advisory support to scale the impact of their work.
The project, supposed to be ready last year, had been delayed due to labour and land issues, and slow progress on the power plant front Shine Jacob With environment clearances delaying Indian Oil Corporation (IOC)’s product pipeline, the state-run company plans to commission its Rs 30,000-crore refinery at Paradip in Odisha this September.
