With the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) having, for the first time, named India as the global host of World Environment Day 2011 (WED) on June 5, the thrust has been on how soon the country can transit towards a green economy.

Launching a scathing attack on minister for environment and forests Jairam Ramesh, Dr R.K. Pachauri, director-general of Teri, minced no words at the non-serious manner in which the government was tackling the Himalayan glacier melt.

Will the ministry of housing and urban poverty alleviation’s ambitious `75,000-crore plan cutting across major cities to make India slum-free work on the ground?

The village of Bhatta is coming to terms with its losses. A fortnight after facing the wrath of the Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC), the majority of men, women and children in this 2,700-strong village are too scared to return to their homes.

The Thar desert is set to become the hub for solar projects which are expected to generate upto 2,100 gigawatts of solar power. Already 35,000-km land has been set aside for both PV and thermal solar farms which are being set up by small firms with plant sizes of as little as five MW.

The Madhya Pradesh government’s hopes that the Union Carbide plant structure be converted into a memorial dedicated to victims of the world’s worst industrial disaster has been shot down by the nine-member GoM chaired by home minister P. Chidambaram.

The ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) is under great pressure to permit the partial release of Bt brinjal. The 19-member Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) has informally conveyed to the ministry its keenness to introduce the controversial Bt brinjal at the earliest.

Minister of environment and forests (MoEF) Jairam Ramesh has ordered the lifting of the stop work order on the controversial Maheshwar Hydel Project being constructed on the river Narmada in Madhya Pradesh by the S. Kumars Group of Companies.

The campaign to ban endosulfan is gaining momentum even as India is striving hard to persuade the ongoing conference of 172 countries to the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants to postpone this decision by another year.

Learning some tough lessons from the cascading effect of Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster, the government has decided to set up standalone safety and operation systems in the nuclear reactors at the Jaitapur Power Park (JPP), two of which are expected to be operational by 2019. It has also been decided that all future reactors to be set up will be a mix of imported and indigenous technology.