The Congress on Thursday accused Bharatiya Janata Party MPs of subjecting Sonia Gandhi to "brutal heckling, verbal assault and physical intimidation", and demanded an apology from Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The issues listed by Gandhi include Centre-state relations, rise in cases of communal tension, border transgressions by China and the demand for a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) to investigate the transactions of the Adani business group in light of several revelations.
Gujarat holds the largest area under wetland with over 3.47 million hectares.
The panelists expressed their views at a national workshop on 'Reforms in Environmental Regulation' organised in New Delhi with an aim to provide a platform to discuss the proposed role of National Environment Protection Authority.
Rahul Gandhi is marching with a positive thought, it is a positive yatra. There is no violence, no hatred. If you are not showing this yatra, you are not fulfilling your dut
The Congress on Thursday objected to Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar deleting some portions of Leader of the Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge's speech from official records, saying he used no unparliamentary words and some of the expressions he employed were earlier used even by former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
The villagers who support the Posco project had also invited Ramesh to visit the proposed plant site to assess the truth behind their rivals' claim about the Rs 52,000 crore (Rs 520 billion) mega steel plant.
The company's Rs 54,000-crore (Rs 54-billion) steel project in Orissa had run into trouble with the ministry over alleged violation of environment norms.
Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh has said that there have been some developments in the three provisions of the draft prepared under the Long Term Cooperative Action (LCA) track, which India presently finds "unacceptable".
India has said that developed countries should "not expect miracles" at the key Copenhagen climate summit in December and the goals sought for emission controls should be more "realistic."
India and China are in talks to monitor the melting of glaciers in the Himalayas, a border region crucial to both countries' water supplies, Minister for Environment Jairam Ramesh has said. "We are talking to the Chinese about monitoring the Himalayan glaciers," Ramesh said. However, he cautioned that India would not allow Chinese scientists "to climb all over India's glaciers", but sought a collaborative research programme.
Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said the NCP may have its view but 19 like-minded Opposition parties are convinced that the "PM-linked Adani Group" issue is real and very serious.
New Delhi's reaction came in response to Beijing announcing Chinese names for 11 more places in Arunachal Pradesh which the neighbouring country claims as southern part Tibet.
Union Minister of State for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh on Tuesday criticised the Shiv Sena for politicising the Jaitapur nuclear plant issue.Speaking as the opposition in the Maharashtra state assembly sought a debate on the protests in Jaitapur and moved an adjournment motion, Ramesh said nuclear energy is the only clean energy option and the Shiv Sena had no business politicising the issue.The comment came as the situation in Jaitapur took a turn for the worse.
The next meeting of opposition parties will be held in Bengaluru on July 17 and 18, the Congress announced on Monday, and asserted their resolve to defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party has been strengthened by the 'Mumbai operations' of the 'BJP washing machine'.
After locking horns with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on the glacier melting issue, environment minister Jairam Ramesh said on Thursday the research of the Indian panel on climate change would be more 'robust and solid' than the UN body's.
"The year 2010 is the year of Tiger in China, which will put more pressure on poaching in China," said Jairam Ramesh.
Alarmed by the confusion created by the public expression of divergent opinions by his key advisors on climate change, the prime minister summoned Saran and Ramesh and asked them to put their heads together and come forward with an agreed text that would reflect both their concerns, a senior government official confirmed.
Union Minister for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh has predicted that the issue of climate change is likely to figure on the agenda when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visits Washington, DC on November 24, on a State Visit. "The whole area of green technologies is an area in which Indian business, instead of being passive recipients of technology from the world, can in fact emerge as active suppliers of technology to the rest of the world," he said.
Ramesh also assured that the Planning Commission methodology on BPL yardstick would not be implemented and its Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia had already clarified last week regarding the controversy generated from the Rs 32 (urban) and Rs 26 (rural areas) as the cut off mark for BPL families.
The 'Mann Ki Baat' programme is set to complete its 100th edition next Sunday, with the prime minister saying it was public support that led to the success of his monthly radio address.
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