2,100 acres already acquired, project needs 2,700 acres in Phase-I

The Odisha government said it has already acquired 2,100 acres of land for the Posco steel project. The government, through its nodal land acquisition agency - Odisha Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (Idco), is hopeful of acquiring additional 600 acres for the project in the next four months.

JAIPUR: A forest guard was killed by a few villagers in Bundi's Dabi forest area after Wednesday midnight while he was trying to stop a tractor carrying illegally mined stones.

SHILLONG, April 18: The Meghalaya Assembly on Thursday rejected the cut motion to discuss the functioning of the Forest department brought by Hill State People’s Democratic Party (HSPDP) legislator

SHILLONG: The Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) will take a call on the quantum of penalty to be imposed on cement plants which have violated the provisions of the Forest Conservation Act,

New Delhi: The government’s plan to detach tribal rights from clearances to projects requiring forestlands partially boomeranged after the Supreme Court on Thursday ordered that the gram sabha shou

Two new genera of frogs were discovered by a team of independent researchers, led by Anil Zachariah and Robin Kurian Abraham, during their recent exploration in the Western Ghats.

The discovery, published in the latest issue of International Taxonomic Journal Zootaxa , is a joint effort by the team which comprised B .R. Ansil; Arun Zachariah of the Wild Life Disease Research Lab in Wayanad; and Robert Alexander Pyron, Assistant professor, Department of Biological Sciences of the George Washington University, U.S.

’’Instead of taking action against the erring cement companies indicted by the JIT, the State Government came out with an amendment on definition of forest which was nothing but to shield the cement lobbies. If this (act on forest definition) is not stopped, more and more forest cover of the state will be depleted,’’

SHILLONG: The Maitshaphrang Movement (MSM) and the Jaintia Youth Fededration (JYF) has alleged that the Meghalaya Forest Regulation (Amendment) Bill, 2012 which was tabled and passed in the Assembly was in favour of the cement companies even as they have decided to file a PIL in the High Court against the State Government.

SHILLONG: The Gauhati High Court has asked the Meghalaya Government to strictly implement the directives of the Ministry of Environment & Forest pertaining to the violation of the Forest Conservation Act, 1980 by cement companies located in Jaintia hills.

The Court also directed the State Government to undertake a joint inspection of the remaining 1,140 hectares of land acquired or under the process of acquisition by the said cement companies to ascertain the status of forests and to submit the report within three months.

Funds under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) are now being put to a strange use - building walls around government forests!

In a letter addressed to chief ministers of states, Tribal Affairs Minister KC Deo has lamented the development saying it’s ironic how MNREGA funds were being used in states to build “high stone walls around government forests” thereby denying tribals and traditional forest dwellers access to their own land and produce.

Suggestion came when neither the NHAI nor the Pune civic body was willing to undertake the task of replanting trees

The Bombay High Court on Tuesday suggested the Pune Municipal Corporation to take the help of school and college students for replanting of those trees which shall be cut for the road widening project on the 800-km Mumbai Bangalore highway. A division bench of Justices D Y Chandrachud and Amjad Sayed was hearing an application filed by the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) seeking permission to cut 1,307 trees falling in the jurisdiction of the Pune civic body for widening the highway from four lanes to six lanes.