New Delhi: Rejection of big-ticket mining proposals such as Vedanta has been a rare exception in the UPA’s nine-year reign. The UPA has given clearance to cut a whopping six lakh hectares of forests — of these more than 2.5 lakh hectares were for mining — since it came to power in mid-2004.

The data, accessed by TOI from the environment ministry, shows that the inprinciple and final clearances add up to the combined area of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and Bangalore, or roughly the equivalent of three large tiger reserves.

After delinking the environment and forest clearances for highway projects, the environment ministry is mulling over a proposal to relax clearance norms for hydro-power projects.

The ministry is considering a proposal that allows hydro-power projects to initiate the forest clearance process without even completing comprehensive river basin study.

Five days after the National Green Tribunal issued a bailable warrant against the chief executive engineer of the PWD for failing to appear in court in the matter of illegal tree felling along the

The Union Ministry of Environment and Forests has accorded stage-I forest clearance to a redesigned Luhri project with the installed capacity scaled down from 775 MW to 588 MW to address environmen

The Cabinet Committee on Investment (CCI) seems to be helping to raze green speed-bumps — ruffling the feathers of environment and tribal activists in the process — with environment clearances havi

The government today said 12 coal mining projects, entailing an investment of Rs 1,347 crore, has been identified for speedy clearances within a month.

As many as 125 projects taken up in Jammu and Kashmir under Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana, the Centrally-funded scheme for expansion of rural road network, are awaiting clearances by the forest