The ruling BJD and the CPM today assailed the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre for hiking prices of petrol within a month. Demanding a rollback, Biju Yuva Janata Dal said the price hike will further fuel the inflationary trend. While the prices of essential commodities have gone through the roof making the life of people miserable, the Centre has miserably failed control it. Alleging
It's time the petroleum ministry faced the challenges of oil pricing reforms, instead of hiding behind the oil firms A K Bhattacharya / New Delhi January 18, 2011, 0:14 IST A quick estimate suggests that international crude oil prices for Indian refineries (or what oil industry experts refer to as the Indian crude oil basket) have gone up 22 per cent since the government decontrolled petrol pr
Amid boycott by dissenting voices, the open house on Jaitapur power project organised by the state government managed to project a happy picture of the nuclear plant. Almost all the participants supported the project. Most of the participants, including the project affected people, welcomed the project and asserted that people with vested interest were spreading misconceptions.
Companies to lose earnest money Unlike past, it will not be easy for independent power producers (IPPs) to surrender projects after allotment as the government has finally incorporated a provision for forfeiting the earnest money in such an eventuality. The provision will be enforced for the 18 hydroelectric projects with the aggregate generation capacity of 1385.5 MW for which global bids hav
Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation (TANGEDCO) had commenced work on executing a Central Government-funded power reforms project in southern districts of the State. Preliminary works on executing the Restructured Accelerated Power Development Reforms Programme (R-APDRP), which aims to bring down transmission and distribution (T&D) losses to less than 15 per cent, has been taken u
A United States-based company, Azure Power, has proposed to set up a solar plant in Meghalaya with one time investment of Rs 150 crore to generate 10 megawatt of solar energy. The US-based solar power producer firm having its international headquarters at California and its headquarters in India at New Delhi, has already negotiated with the State Government for signing the solar power purchase
The Rajiv Gandhi Gramin Vidyutikaran Yojana (RGGVY) is one flagship programme of the UPA government where the entire budgeted allocation of Rs 33,000 crore has been committed, but the desired result is still elusive. RGGVY, a component of Bharat Nirman, was launched in April 2005 with a mandate to electrify 100,000 villages and release electricity connections to 2.3 crore rural BPL households i
BHUBANESWAR: Acting on a writ petition filed by one Suresh Pradhan and others, the Orissa High Court today issued notices to the Centre and State Government along with Jindal India Thermal Power Ltd over establishment of its power plant at Deranga in Angul district. A Division Bench of Chief Justice V Gopalagowda and Justice BN Mohapatra has also directed status quo on the public roads within
Minister for Science and Technology, Animal and Sheep Husbandry, Aga Syed Ruhullah today said that Government has taken up a mega project of providing solar home lights to 40,000 un-electrified households of remote and far-flung areas which include Doda, Reasi, Ramban and Kupwara. The Minister was addressing an officers meeting of Science and Technology here today. The Minister further said
A campaign to encourage the use of LED (light-emitting diode) bulbs was launched at Valavil and Parakkal villages at Mahe by home minister E Valsaraj on Saturday. Under the campaign, incandescent and fluorescent bulbs are being replaced with 22-watt LED bulbs by the Renewable Energy Agency of Puducherry (REAP). According to a press release from the REAP project director, the government is sp
Days after he was stopped from speaking against the government during a public hearing regarding the Jaitapur nuclear power project, local resident Milind Desai and 12 others were arrested by the Ratnagiri police on Tuesday for cases of rioting registered against them after an incident in December 2010. Desai was arrested early in the morning from his residence and sent in police custody for th
The government is planning to allow developers of ultra mega power projects to use surplus coal from allocated blocks for other projects in which they hold majority stake.
The Opposition members in the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday said government should not go ahead with the Jaitapur nuclear power project in Maharashtra if it faced resistance from the locals. Alleging "repression" against those opposed to the project Manohar Joshi (Shiv Sena) said his party was opposed to the project reflecting the sentiments of the people in the Konkan area of the state.
If energy, reforms and governance are addressed right, the Indian economy will be the largest by 2045 Given its extraordinary demographics and the unfulfilled demand for infrastructure and consumption combined with the hopes and predictions of responsible bankers such as Citibank and Goldman Sachs, India must know her strategy to keep growing at 10% and with sub-5% inflation to be the largest eco
The health ministry is in a dilemma on whether to impose a ban on chewing tobacco products
Cannot wish ecological poverty away
the Salwa Judum movement, an armed counter-Naxalite campaign in Chhattisgarh comprising of local tribal and non-tribal people backed by the state, is precipitating a deeper crisis in the state
parshit Kurmi, a daily-wage labourer in Delhi since 1991, was puzzled when he was told that the government's latest estimate had found poverty levels were coming down. For the past 16 years, Kurmi's
Lethal infections are killing off populations of creatures ranging from vultures to kangaroos, from coral to honeybees and from amphibians to reptiles. More than pollution, diseases spread by humans
The Supreme Court warns states against denotifying protected areas
