Speaking at the inaugural session of InfraGreen’11 conference, Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan stressed the need for creation of green infrastructure and focusing on sustainable development. ‘India has managed a good growth rate despite our various initiatives to combat climate change. While we focus on mitigation measures, poverty eradication and equity need to take centre stage. There…
Aimed at setting up an anti-corruption watchdog, the much debated Lokpal bill will be tabled in the Lok Sabha today. With a chairperson and eight members, half of them judicial, Lokpal is expected to have authority to investigate and even prosecute. It will also be provided with officers and staff necessary to carry out its…
In an effort to win people’s confidence in order to streamline business, Coal India (CIL) will focus more on its corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities. India’s biggest coal producer believes that inability to develop stakeholders’ interests led to problems in land acquisition in ‘no-go zones’, and pending environment clearances have cost it over 16 million…
‘The regulatory framework for environmental clearance of development projects needs urgent streamlining and reform. The environment cannot be protected by perpetuating poverty,’ said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Singh added that the central government will soon set up an independent regulatory body, the National Environment Appraisal and Monitoring Authority. It is expected that the authority’s work will…
The Cradle Baby scheme, under which cradles are placed at various locations to receive female children abandoned by their parents, has been extended to five more districts in Tamil Nadu. The scheme is aimed at improving the child sex ratio (CSR) by curtailing female infanticide and abandoning of the girl child, which has been an issue of…
With an aim to encourage new ideas and approaches to accelerate safe and affordable access to sanitation for everyone, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is providing $42 million in new grants. The grant will fund toilet innovations, including research into new methods of capturing, storing, and processing waste into fertilizer, energy, and drinkable water….
In an effort to prevent illegal prenatal sex determination tests that lead to female foeticide, the Maharashtra government will rope in NGOs to carry out sting operations and identify malpractices at clinics. The proposal from the government is inspired by an act of a social activist who used a decoy couple to book a gynaecologist…
Mukhya Mantri Dal-Bhaat Yojna is an initiative of Jharkhand government to provide subsidized food to the poor people in the state. The decision to start the subsidized lunch scheme to help people from below poverty line (BPL) was taken at the review meeting yesterday of the food and civil supplies department by chief minister Arjun…
A report published by the Environmental Working Group (EWG), a Washington-based advocacy organization, provides a comprehensive assessment of 20 popular protein-packed foods and points to lamb, beef, pork, cheese, and farmed salmon as the protein-packed foods that take the largest toll on the environment. The group took into account the environmental impact of production, processing, transportation, cooking,…
In the eyes of a newcomer, most things commonplace appear to be out of the league of ordinary and seem to be very bright on the edge of their comprehension. Two such innovative creations in different projects of CARE India also caught my attention, as I tried to permeate through the different programme strategies being…
