Sitting Bharatiya Janata Party Member of Legislative Assembly Manoj Pradhan was on Thursday sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for six years by a fast track court for a murder during the 2008 communal riots in Orissa's Kandhamal district. Fast track court-II judge C R Das convicted Pradhan for the murder of Bikram Nayak, a Christian from Budedipada of Tiangia village under Raikia police station limits on August 26, 2008.
The mining ban has implications beyond just protecting the environment and tribal rights.
Reader Rishi sent us these pictures from Rourkela, Orissa.
Unless the Naxals put a stop to violence, Operation Green Hunt will continue, Union Home Minister P Chidambaram told mediapersons at Kolkata's Writers' Building on Tuesday.
As many as 206 stocks defied bearish overall trend to trade in the positive zone on Monday even as the broader market witnessed a bloodbath with the Sensex plunging to an intra-day fall of over 1,200 points till noon.
The recent Vedanta verdict is an aberration, not a trend, feels Nityanand Jayaraman.
Sam Pitroda says Rahul Gandhi's support for the tribals is correct and while he backs development he says it must be done by preserving the rights and culture of the tribals.
'The government must give up its neo-liberal polices and obsession with GDP growth and shift its ideological centre of gravity leftwards.'
Visiting diplomats from the European Union faced protest from Vishwa Hindu Parishad activists at the Bhubhaneshwar airport as soon as they landed in Orissa, on Tuesday. The diplomatic delegation comprised representatives from Hungary, Poland, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Britain, Finland and Sweden.
Faced with problems of acquiring land for various projects in the state, the Orissa government has decided to create exclusive land banks for industrial purpose.
The government asked five states to tighten security and take maximum precaution during the 48-hour shutdown called by the Maoists beginning on Tuesday.
Sources told PTI that the Environment Ministry's Expert Appraisal Committee of Coastal Regulation Zone at a meeting asked Posco to give additional information on the captive port near its proposed 12 million tonnes per annum plant in Jagathsinghpur in Orissa that is also awaiting green nod.
India on Monday successfully test-fired its nuclear-capable Agni-II missile intermediate range ballistic missile, with a range of 2000 kms, from the Wheelers Island off Orissa coast.
Even though Vedanta Resource's proposal to mine bauxite at the sacred mountain in Orissa's Kalahandi district is rejected, for thousands of tribals like Laksa Majhi, who for countless generations have lived in the shadow of Niyamgiri, the insecurities persist.
Union Home Minister, P Chidambaram said on Friday that the progress of the on-going operation against the Maoists in the Naxal-hit states was "satisfactory"."The joint operation against the Naxalites is few weeks old and the progress has been satisfactory," Chidambaram told media-persons after a high-level meeting convened in Raipur to review the operation.
Last month, the FAC passed the buck to the tribal affairs ministry to see if the project proponents violated any tribal rights.
The Central Bureau of Investigation on Monday filed its first charge-sheet in a Delhi court in the coal blocks allocation case against Navabharat Power Pvt Ltd for allegedly misrepresenting facts and making "fraudulent" claims to "embellish" its applications to get allotments between 2006 and 2009.
A notice issued on Monday to the Andhra Pradesh government to put on hold the government project is, in fact, meant to help out the Opposition-ruled states of Orissa and Chhattisgarh whose land is threatened to be submerged because of the project.
With the Centre showing readiness to spend on development to counter Left-wing insurgency, getting more of their districts declared Naxal-affected seemed to be a common idea across state chief ministers at today's National Development Council meet.
The role of Meena Hembram and 20 others came to limelight after the Meena Gupta panel, which submitted its reports to the union Ministry of Environment and Forest on October 18, pointed out that there were seven tribal families living in villages demarcated to house the 12 mtpa steel mill.
Samanth Subramanian author of Following Fish shares with us his experiences of travelling across the nine Indian coastal states and swallowing a live fish in Hyderabad.
Earlier, two different benches of the apex court had refused to hear the cross-appeals saying that one or the other judges had been linked to the adjudication of the issue before.
Here are readers' best photographs from the past year! Where are yours? Send us your pics now!
Subendhu Panigrahi, hailing from Sambalpur, a small town in Orissa, is just the epitome of these virtues which enable people to break free from the clutter and choose the path less trodden.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will address a specially convened meeting of chief ministers of Naxal-affected states on Tuesday to chalk out a fresh strategy to curb Left-wing extremism.
The Right to Read programme hopes to cover 100,000 schools, covering 15 million students.
The situation in Orissa's Kandhamal district, which was hit by communal riots 3 years ago, has vastly changed and central forces have been withdrawn from there, the Centre told the Supreme Court on Monday. "The situation has vastly changed," Solicitor General Gopal Subramanium told the apex court which is monitoring the situation in the district ever since it was affected by the riots following the killing of Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati.
Naxal leader and Kanu Sanyal's friend Ashim Chatterjee speaks about Kanu Sanyal's life and death.
The government has alerted Naxal-affected states against possible Maoist attacks on railway networks, in the wake of Left-wing extremists targeting a Rajdhani Express train in Bihar, by blasting the rail tracks. The home ministry has issued the alert to West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa and Chhattisgarh, apprehending attacks by Naxals on trains and railway infrastructure, as any sabotage on the network can result in large-scale damages, official sources said.
A committee set up by the Environment Ministry to look into forest and environment issues involving the Korean steel giant Posco's Rs 54,000- crore (Rs 540 billion) project in Orissa will submit its report on October 18.
Mining major Vedanta Resources on Thursday said its investment in India would come down by up to $2 billion (nearly Rs 9,000 crore) in the next two years as expansion plans are put on hold after the group has been denied permission to mine bauxite in Orissa's Niyamgiri hills.
The office of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has written to the Union environment and forests ministry urging it to clear Vedanta's proposed Niyamgiri mine in Orissa. The mine cannot go ahead without official clearance from the environment ministry.
The Vedanta Group, which was issued a show cause notice for allegedly flouting environment laws, will appear before the Union Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF) on Thursday
Indian-American professor, Manoranjan 'Mano' Misra, at University of Nevada, Reno (UNR), has been honoured by the Nevada System of Higher Education Board of Regents for his research works.
The Orissa government on Wednesday admitted illegal stocking and transportation of minerals by rail in the Joda mining belt even as it rejected the Opposition demand for instituting a CBI enquiry into allegations of irregularities in mining operation in the state.
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