Corporate Affairs Ministry to seek legal opinion on diversion from Companies Act

The Chhattisgarh government has sprung a unique and potentially illegal interpretation of the new Companies Bill’s mandatory Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) provision on private sector players, by asking firms to deposit their contributions to the Chief Minister Community Development Fund rather than undertake CSR projects on their own.

Responding to the Environment Ministry’s criticism of the National Investment Board (NIB) proposal on grievance redress mechanism — aggrieved investors will be allowed to approach the NIB for redre

Proposed NIB would be illegal, she says

Minister of State for Environment and Forests Jayanthi Natarajan has expressed “very serious concern” at the setting up of a National Investment Board to fast-track clearances of major infrastructure projects, saying the “concept is unacceptable,” documents exclusively obtained by The Hindu reveal. In a five-page letter sent to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on October 9, Ms. Natarajan said the proposal would upturn established procedures of government business, place corporate interests over those of citizens and violate environmental protection mandates imposed by the Supreme Court.

The Centre has told Parliament that the exposure limit for radio frequency fields (base station emissions) will be brought down to one-tenth of the existing level from September 1.

This direction was to have been implemented from April 1. However, on an examination of the impact of the revised Electric and Magnetic Field (EMF) exposure limit on area coverage and exclusion zone, self-certification compliance with the new norms has been extended.

The International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) guidelines of April 1998 say epidemiological studies on workers exposed to Electric and Magnetic Field (EMF) and the public have shown no major health effects associated with typical exposure environments.

The studies have yielded no convincing evidence that typical exposure levels lead to adverse reproductive outcomes or an increased cancer risk.

The Chawla Committee Report reveals that the government's legal references and disclosures to the Supreme Court on the MMDR Act is not the whole truth, which could be an additional reason for the report gathering dust.

The Ministry of Mines has framed a new MMDR Bill 2011 to replace the old MMDR Act 1957 which has been referred to the GoM and vetted by the Law Ministry. The review