New Delhi The Indian forest cover has shrunk. And there is no one to announce the data, as environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan has not found time to release it.

The silence is in tune with the way the ministry of environment and forests has worked in the last five months after the new minister took over. The release of the India State of Forest Report-2011 was deferred in December. Natarajan is yet to set a date for the release of the report, a key component of macro-economic policy-making for the government and the industry. Natarajan has maintained her silence even after returning from the ministerial level climate change conference at Durban in early December.