The Virbhadra Singh-led Congress government, in a late evening cabinet decision on Wednesday, decided to grant licence to Reliance Industries for setting up a cement plant in the Chopal tehsil of a

A memorandum of understanding signed between multinational beverage giant Coca Cola and Uttarakhand government to set up a Rs 600 crore bottling plant in the district has triggered protests by envi

Navdanya, the People’s Science Institute and the Friends of Doon — all local environment protection groups — have urged Uttarakhand Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna to immediately cancel the memorandum of understanding signed with Coca-Cola that plans to set up a unit in Vikas Nagar area near here.

“We will never allow Coca-Cola to set up its plant in the ecologically sensitive Doon Valley as the plant, besides stealing our water, will pollute the groundwater with highly dangerous chemicals and metals causing untold misery to the local community and convert the neighbouring agricultural lands into wastelands,” said Vandana Shiva of Navdanya.

In the wake of the CBI raid implicating an officer of the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) in arranging green clearances for certain mining projects in Orissa, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh, the ministry has for now put on hold all projects associated with the implicated consultant.

Sources said a limestone mining project of Chariot Steel & Power located at village Raiboga in Sundergarh district has already been put on hold. The CBI had on January 16 recovered Rs 1.04 crore from a MoEF deputy director. He was arrested for allegedly accepting a bribe of Rs 7 lakh to arrange environmental clearance for an Orissa-based power and steel company.

CHERRAPUNJEE (MEGHALAYA): On the way to Cherrapunjee, at a tiny town called Mawmihthied, girls line up near a water tap with a long queue of empty buckets. As one nears what was once ranked the world's wettest place, there are more such groups waiting to fill up for the day.

Laribinglin, 26, one of those hanging around the tap -- they are called 'platform' here -- says scrounging for water has become part of daily schedule. "Sometimes we get proper drinking water once in three days," she complains. "The source is one and half hours away. It is not possible to walk there every day."

A patchwork green and black — hills of glistening coal and forested flats — sprawls over 2,000 sq km in the East Jaintia Hills. The digging, splitting and sorting of coal is ceaseless, as is the coming and going of SUVs loaded with migrant labour. A fine black film covers every inch of Ladrymbai — every aspect of life in this mining town revolves around coal.

Of the 29 candidates for Meghalaya's assembly in the East Jaintia Hills, at least 13 are well known coal mine owners; two have limestone mines. In the constituency of Khliehriat, all five candidates — one each from the Congress and United Democratic Party and three independents — are coal barons.

While rejecting sections of a proposed road that it fears will disturb India's largest breeding site for flamingos in the Great Rann of Kutch, the National Board for Wildlife (NBWL) has recommended

An environmental scientist’s arrest for granting clearance for a limestone mine in Orissa is the tip of the corruption iceberg that is floating freely in the environment ministry.

A cash stash of `1 crore was allegedly recovered from the Gurgaon and Rohtak premises of Neeraj Kumar Khatri, who works as a deputy director in the ministry of environment and forests (MoEF).

SHILLONG: Despite the introduction of the State Mining Policy, unscientific mining of coal and limestone continue to pollute Lukha river in Jaintia Hills.

The colour of the water continues to remain blue during the entire course of the winter season due to rampant pollution. An official of the State Pollution Control Board said that the Board had in the past suggested remedial measures, both short term and long term, to address the issue of the river water turning blue.