Govt asks AP guv to use powers in Scheduled Areas to cancel bauxite lease in Maoist area
For the first time, the Centre has urged the governor to use his special powers in Scheduled Areas to cancel bauxite mining leases given in Andhra Pradesh’s Vishakhapatnam district.

The tigers of the Tadoba reserve in Vidarbha region, have new owners. They are the tribals who live in the 79 villages just outside the reserve (known as the buffer zone), who have been given a direct economic stake in the well-being of the tigers. “Visitors who wish to see the tigers in the buffer zone have to pay a fee to the village,” said a senior forest official. “And, each party travelling in that area has to hire a guide, who must be a tribal, and pay him Rs200, up from the Rs100 earlier. This gives the tribals a sense of ownership in the wellbeing of the tigers.”

The Centre will be providing separate funds under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojna (PMGSY) for enhancing road connectivity in the six border districts of Punjab. The proposed move would benefit Amritsar, Gurdaspur, Ferozepur, Fazilka, Taran Taran and Pathankot, according to Union rural development minister Jairam Ramesh.

Also, the condition of minimum inhabitation of 500 persons for providing road connectivity under PMGSY would be relaxed to 250 persons in the case of border districts on the lines of tribal and naxal areas, he said on Saturday.

KOZHIKODE: The latest series of land agitations started by the tribal people in Wayanad district on May 7 has intensified with more vested forest lands being encroached on Monday. New encroachments of forest lands by erecting huts under the aegis of Adivasi Congress, the tribal arm of the Congress, have been reported from Thavinchal 44, Kaithakolli Vattikunnu near Mananthavady.

A total of 200 acres of land, which includes Revenue, Forest and Devaswom land, was encroached by around 170 Paniya families at Edapetti.

Newly-appointed Himachal Pradesh Chief Secretary Sudripta Roy on Thursday confirmed that all Jaiprakash Associate Limited projects and properties will now come under the scanner after large-scale irregularities by the company were pointed out by the High Court.

The Himachal Pradesh High Court recently imposed a fine of Rs.100 crore on the company's Bagheri cement plant in Solan after discovering that it had flouted environmental laws and wrongfully acquired the land of native people.

Non-government organisation Sulabh International on Thursday said it would give a Rs.2-lakh cash reward to newly-married Priyanka of Kanchanpur Kuiya village in Maharajganj district of Uttar Pradesh who refused to go to her in-laws' house because it lacked a proper toilet. The NGO, working in the field of sanitation, has also decided to build a toilet at her in-laws' home.

Is the Asia-Pacific region set to bear the onerous title of having become the disaster centre of the globe? So it would seem if one went by UNDP’s Asia-Pacific Development Report “One Planet to Share — Sustaining Human Progress in a Changing Climate”.

Climate-related disasters are on the rise and during the last two decades, 45 per cent of the world’s natural disasters, whether it be floods in Pakistan in 2010 or Cyclone Nargis which hit Burma in 2008, have occurred here, resulting in numerous deaths, massive human dislocations and severe economic losses.

The gross growth rate of Madhya Pradesh was over 10 percent during the 11th Five-Year Plan. Target of 12 percent growth rate is proposed for the 12th Five-Year Plan. This information was given at meeting held in connection with preparations for the meeting of the Planning Commission here today. The meeting was chaired by Chief Minister Shri Shivraj Singh Chouhan. Finance Minister Shri Raghavji, Deputy Chairman of State Planning Commission Shri Babulal Jain and Chief Secretary Shri R. Parasuram were present at the meeting.