The Mahindra group's Igatpuri plant becomes the first in India to be declared carbon-neutral. Ashish Narsale / Rediff.com finds out how this was achieved.
Chairing an exclusive roundtable with 42 global CEOs and top executives from across 20 sectors, Modi stressed on continued political stability in India, predictability of policy, and pro-development and pro-growth policies.
Excise duty cut to boost Polymers sector.
'Wild animals lived in their natural environment.' 'So, viruses could not be communicated.' 'Then came mass production and mass quartering of animals -- whether it be poultry, pigs and cattle -- which gave rise to bird flu, SARS and the mad cow disease.' 'Vast amounts of animal produce are also being flown from one part of the world to another, which has helped to spread the virus.' 'All these changes have led to a new and deadly mutation of the virus that has immobliised human beings.'
Anil Madhav Dave is a known conservationist but may have to fight green allegations.
Modi's unexpected announcement of achieving net zero by 2070 may have neatly deflected the pressures on India to sign up to an ambitious pledge but it does nothing to dispel the ecological emergency that threatens all life on the planet, , points out former forerign secretary Shyam Saran, the prime minister's special envoy and chief negotiator on climate change 2007-2010.
HR Guru Mayank Rautela offers practical advice.
The Centre on Monday earmarked a separate Rs 2,217 crore for 42 urban centres to tackle air pollution and announced the much-awaited voluntary vehicle scrapping policy to phase out old and polluting vehicles, even as it shrunk the budgetary allocation for the environment ministry from the last fiscal by nearly eight percent. Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, in her budget speech for 2021-22, announced a total of Rs 2869.93 crore for the ministry, Rs 230 crore less than the last fiscal. Officials said the outlay has been lesser this time as the economy is recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The all-powerful GST Council on Friday decided to charge food delivery platforms such as Swiggy and Zomato a tax even as it extended concessional tax rates on certain COVID-19 drugs by three months till December 31. The Council, which comprises the Union finance minister and her state counterparts, decided to continue keeping petrol and diesel out of the GST purview as subsuming the current excise duty and VAT into one national rate would impact revenues. Briefing reporters on the decisions taken by the Council at a meeting here, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said GST has been exempted on muscular atrophy drugs like Zolgensma and Viltepso, which cost crores of rupees.
'Our automakers export 50 per cent of what they manufacture and once the policy comes into play, which is in the next 2-3 years, we would become a Rs 10 trillion industry.'
Rajendra Nagar, a planned colony built after Independence, is the worst-affected area in the Bihar capital, seeing an unprecedented flooding which residents said has "exposed the under-preparedness of the corporation".
'Kanpur and Hoogly district are the most polluted on the Ganga.'
Uttarakhand's Kumaon hills are setting new standards in dirt and poor solid waste management, sys Anjuli Bhargava.
India's indigenous paper manufacturers are forced to use a variety of raw materials.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday attended the Dussehra celebrations at Ram Leela maidan in Dwarka and in his address said that India is a land of festivals and that every festival brings our society together. He also urged people to take up and fulfill one mission that would benefit the country.
The minister wants maximum use of alternative fuel in rail operations.
Soaring fuel prices give birth to a jugaad system in Bihar's border towns abutting Nepal with residents smuggling in India-supplied cheaper petrol and diesel from the mountain kingdom.
The city is waging a war against garbage, says Anjuli Bhargava.
Vivek Agarwal, founder of OOKIOH tells Rediff how he is making swimsuits that look good and feel great too.
For far too long, people in J&K have felt the government doesn't exist for them.' 'My first priority is to make them feel that not only does it exist, it is there to work for them.
'Student of the Year 2 has no spunk, no plot and zero charisma,' sighs Sukanya Verma.
Expressing concern over the alarming level of air pollution in Bihar, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has directed concerned officials for banning 15-year-old diesel vehicles in the state capital among other measures to improve the situation.
Thanks to the increased thrust on cow protection, the enforcement of the ban on cow slaughter and the relentless crusade by cow vigilantes, the agrarian ecosystem from Haryana to Uttar Pradesh has been irrevocably altered. There's a huge spike in the number of stray cattle roaming the countryside, destroying crops. Ten cows/bulls take barely an hour to eat and destroy a bigha of crop land.
Whether we flew aircraft or mastered plastic surgery is immaterial for modern India, what matters is if ancient Indians understood the science and art of settlement planning, architecture and governance of natural resources. This is the history we need to learn, says Sunita Narain
Weddings in 2020 are going to be all about originality.
Sukanya Verma looks at the wide-eyed dolly's presence in our movies.
The green panel ordered a survey to seek views of the common people about what they feel on ground about the pollution in the Ganga.
Not everything the devotees consigned to the sea on Monday at the end of the 11-day Ganpati festival is retained, a lot of it is in fact comes washing up in the tide. Paloma Sharma/Rediff.com speaks to the volunteers involved in the clean-up.
The major cause of the floods in Mumbai in 2005 and in Chennai in 2015 has been the reclamation of reservoir areas and rapid, unplanned, urbanisation.
Ama Tsogspa believes that any issue related to the community is their concern and responds to it organically.
There is nothing the young Purvanchali wants more desperately than to escape to a place with less hopelessness, and some opportunity, discovers Shekhar Gupta.
The highest ever average daily construction rate of 130 km has been achieved for rural roads
'I am afraid the condemnation of mob attacks is a case of too little too little.' 'Much sterner action is needed,' BJP MP Shatrughan Sinha tells Subhash K Jha.
Being trendy was never this simple!
News of all that's transpired on and off the football field
Delhi is a year-round health hazard that visitors shun like the plague, says Sunil Sethi.
'The sari is a symbol of Indianism.' 'Once I was wearing a sari and walking in the middle of a market in Amsterdam and there was a musician playing a instrument.' 'When he saw me, he started playing an Indian song.' 'A sari has such strong cultural narrative.'
Bobbing on Rio de Janeiro's Guanabara Bay in a blue and white fishing boat, American sailor Brad Funk uses a plastic bin to scoop rubbish from the waters where Olympic sailing races will take place next month.
Abdul Malik, a Maths teacher, prefers to swim to save travel time.
