Jay Mazoomdaar

Due in September 2019, the quadrennial report was delayed by 11 months. On July 29, 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi released a summary report, announcing a 33 per cent jump in India’s tiger number from 2,226 in 2014 to 2,967 in 2018.

In a preliminary report, the panel has recommended “scrutiny of all existing projects of OIL in Assam” in view of “serious and grave infraction against the statutory environmental safeguards”.

Healthcare experts at the forefront of the race to contain the Covid outbreak continue to complain that these kits are “suffocating” and “unwearable”.

Till June 19, the ICMR validated 56 rapid antibody test kits, 11 of which are Indian. But the test does not even figure in its June 23 advisory on ‘Strategies for Covid-19 testing’.

While India has reached the 10-million-test landmark, domestic manufacturers supply only 25-30% of RT-PCR kits used. Given that ICMR has validated over two dozen Indian manufacturers, that is a small improvement from the country’s 100% dependence on imported test kits in March.

On May 11, OIL obtained environment clearance from the Centre for drilling seven wells inside Dibru Saikhowa using the sub-surface Extended Reach Drilling (ERD) technology from three existing wells (Baghjan 3, 5 and 11) adjacent to the park.

The Delhi High Court has extended the window for public feedback to the draft Environment Impact Assessment Notification 2020. A look at the changes proposed in the norms, and why these bother activists.

In its order granting bail to Firoz Khan, an Old Mustafabad resident sent to judicial custody on April 3 in a case lodged in Dayalpur, the High Court said: “Prison is primarily for punishing convicts; not for detaining undertrials in order to send any ‘message’ to society. The remit of the court is to dispense justice in accordance with law, not to send messages to society.”

Since the draft was published on April 11, the mandatory 60-day public notice period would end on June 10. By setting June 30 as the new deadline, Javadekar in effect settled for an extension of only 20 days.

On June 8, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) searched the office of Cox & Kings, the residences of its promoter Ajay Ajit Peter Kerkar and other senior executives under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act in connection with a Rs 3,642 crore fraud at Yes Bank Ltd.

In a letter to Environment minister Prakash Javadekar, Raman Sukumar, eminent elephant expert and NBWL member, also sought action against North Eastern Coalfields for suppressing from the NBWL the extent of violations at the project site.

According to figures shared by the Union Health ministry, the 7-day compounded daily growth rate (CDGR) of Covid-19 cases started dipping on April 8.

Funded by the developer, the WII study concluded that the project would not affect tigers since none was camera-trapped in the project area during the four-month fieldwork.

The Ministry’s move, in an order issued on March 28, was necessitated by the need to align government policies after the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957, was amended in January 2020 to include provisions for transfer of statutory clearances.

Projects under Category A are appraised by the Ministry, and those under category B by states. Projects exempted from EIA and public hearings are classified under Category B2.

The searches, I-T officials said, were conducted in the morning in connection with alleged money laundering and benami landholdings in Bikaner. Earlier, properties belonging to the Nagar brothers were searched by the Enforcement Directorate and the I-T Department in April 2017 and October 2019 respectively.

While sources in the Ministry of Culture said that “a couple of MPs” reacted to the menu shared by the ministry online, additional director general Subrata Nath denied knowledge of any “external interference” in the matter.

Decades after the cheetah went extinct in India, SC has cleared a proposal for importing a few from Africa. It throws the spotlight on the cheetahs’ future, impact on indigenous species, and translocation of lions.

Thampi, according to ED, is an associate of Vadra and helped him invest in real estate assets in London — he runs Skylight FZE in Dubai which shares its name with a company owned by Vadra in India.

As an incentive, the proposal stated, the Ministry would give priority to project developers opting for the scheme.

State of Forest Report 2019 has shown a 1,275 sq km gain in very dense forest, but what this statistic masks is the fact that the country continues to lose its best natural forests. A look at what was gained and lost.

On paper, much of this destruction of quality natural forests was compensated by plantations — a total of 10,227 sq km of non-forests became dense forests in successive two-year windows since 2003. Again, more than half of this — 5,458 sq km — since 2015.

Following a Delhi High Court order in a case related to missing children, the Delhi Police had acquired Automated Facial Recognition System (AFRS) software in March 2018 as a tool to identify lost and found boys and girls by matching photos.

An investigation by The Indian Express has revealed that a vast network of live wires running thousands of bore wells could have created a submerged electric trap and the carcass of electrocuted birds could have served as the biomass for the toxic bacteria to thrive.