Goa scam ran through PM's stint at environment ministry

September 12, 2012
Goa_Mining

New Delhi, September 12: The Justice M B Shah Commission's indictment of the Union environment ministry for disregarding norms and Supreme Court orders to give clearances that facilitated rampant iron ore mining in Goa covers the period when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh held charge of the environment and forests portfolio.

The commission's censure of authorities for letting the mines function for more than half a decade in violation of norms for environment protection applies to the two-year spell — from May 17, 2007 to May 27, 2009 — when Singh was in charge of the ministry. He was assisted by two ministers of state — Congress's Namo Narain Meena and DMK's S Raghupathy. This was the period between the tenures of two Cabinet ministers — A Raja and Jairam Ramesh.

The commission has taken a stern view of the failure of the authorities to rein in the mining industry.


Goa's ban on mining is in reality a sham

The Shah Commission report may give the people of Goa only a temporary reprieve from the impacts of mining with the state government permitting trade of already extracted ore that has been termed illegal by the panel.

The Manohar Parrikar government has also advocated extraction and export from existing mining dumps — which by some estimates are pegged at 700 million tonnes and contain low grade ore. This could turn into a lucrative source of raw material for miners.

In its order, the state has said, "The suspension of mining operation shall not affect trade and transportation of ore already mined and existing in the lease hold area, in transit or stored or stocked in jetties."

With mining already at a low ebb or temporarily shut due to monsoon, the temporary suspension, officials in the Union government warn, would hardly impact production in the short run.

The BJP, which had defeated the previous Congress regime by running on a strong plank against illegal iron ore mining, has now pitched its weight behind mining of the existing dumps which can now be worked for low grade ore.

The state government has taken on the Centre which had claimed that these dumps worth several millions of dollars could be mined for iron only after environment, forest and other central clearances. Parrikar's draft mining policy too favours ore from mining dumps to be exported and he has armed himself with legal opinion to challenge the need for environmental clearances.

In an indication that the state government is soft-pedalling, it is yet to move to notify the eco-sensitive zones ( ESZ) around national parks and sanctuaries which would close a large number of mines. Goa has so far indicated that it is completely against the ESZs.

The actions of the Parikkar government go against the recommendations of the Shah Commission. The commission has noted that cases of theft should be registered as much of the ore was extracted illegally.

It has also recommended that the state government recover market or export rates for the material already mined.


Parrikar govt's order seems a little strange

The Parrikar government's order seems a little strange. If mining has been halted because it was illegal, what sense does it make to allow what has already been dug out to be sold? Clearly, it can't be anybody's case that the ore must be put back into the earth. But why must those who have illegally been plundering the state's mineral riches be allowed to continue to benefit from it. Would it not make much more sense for the state to confiscate the ores already mined and sell it so that the proceeds of the sale accrue to the state, not to those breaking the law?


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Agencies
May 26,2020

New Delhi, May 26: The in-fighting among the residents of housing societies over feeding of stray dogs is nowhere near ending, with yet another attack on a pregnant Russian woman again in the national capital region this time in Noida.

The Russian woman residing in a condominium in Noida's Sector 71 was allegedly attacked by two men for feeding foundling canines inside the complex.

"We have initiated an inquiry and a case has been registered against the men for voluntarily causing hurt and criminal intimidation," Amit Kumar Singh, Station House Officer of Phase 3 police station told IANS.

The police said that the victim is married to an Indian man and they live in that society.

The issue was raked up on social media by one of the residents of the society. Her post had even solicited a response and help from the Noida Police Commissioner.

Kaveri Rana Bharadwaj wrote, "Mob led by Vikas Sharma, and Mr. Chauhan beat up a pregnant woman in Jagriti Apartment, Sector 71 Noida. Request you to immediately arrest these men and provide security to the scared woman!"

When contacted, a member of the Resident Welfare Association (RWA) of the society said that the allegations levied by her are false and that he, along with a handful of other people, had only asked her not to feed the dogs.

Vikas Sharma divulged, "The woman was called at the society gate by the members of the RWA. When she was asked not to feed the street dogs, she became aggressive, started fighting with the residents of the society and even pushed a 70-year-old woman. The complaint that she registered against us is false. We did not even touch her."

He added that there are 70-80 street dogs in the society who have lately become extremely aggressive. "The lady was asked not to feed them as people feared stepping out of their houses and getting bitten."

In another incident on Tuesday, a Greater Noida man beat up a Chinese woman for allegedly fostering a stray dog which bit his canine.

Greater Noida District Commissioner of Police Rajesh Kumar Singh told IANS that the man named Amar Pratap Singh of ATS Paradiso misbehaved with the woman after his dog was bit by another dog who she used to feed every day.

The incident happened in the wee hours of the day when the accused took his dog out for a walk. "After his dog was bitten, in a fit of rage, he misbehaved with the Chinese woman." A Non-Cognizable Report (NCR) has been registered and no arrests have been made so far, the police said.

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News Network
June 7,2020

Bhopal, June 7: In a shocking incident of medical cruelty, an 80-year-old man was tied to a hospital bed in Madhya Pradesh after he allegedly failed to make payment of fees for his treatment. The incident took place at the City Hospital in Shajapur.  

The hospital, however, claimed that he was having convulsions and as a result had his hands and legs tied so that he could not hurt himself.

The man’s family members have accused the hospital authorities of resorting to the heinous act after they failed to pay a fee of Rs 11,000 for his treatment at the. 

“We had deposited a bill of Rs 5,000 at the time of admission but when the treatment took a few more days, we did not have the money to pay the bill,” his daughter told the channel.

The hospital, however, maintained that the man was shackled because he was suffering from an electrolyte imbalance. “He was having convulsions because of electrolyte imbalance,” an unidentified doctor said. “We tied him so that he could not hurt himself.” 
The doctor claimed the hospital had waived off the man’s bill on “humanitarian grounds”.

Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan took cognizance of the matter and promised strict action against the hospital authorities. 

The Shajapur administration has also ordered an inquiry and has sent a police team to the hospital for investigation, the district collector told media persons.

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Agencies
May 26,2020

In a startling revelation, cybersecurity researchers have claimed that a hacker has posted personal details of nearly 2.9 crore Indian job seekers at one of the hacking forums on the Dark Web for free.

As part of the regular sweep over the Deep Web and Dark Web, researchers from cybersecurity firm Cyble came across an interesting item, where a threat actor posted 2.3GB (zipped) file on one of the hacking forums.

"The leak actually has a lot of personal details of millions of Indians Job seekers from different states," Cyble said in its blog on Friday.

This breach includes sensitive information such as email, phone, home address, qualification and work experience etc from job seekers spanning across states, from New Delhi to Mumbai and Bengaluru. 

Cybercriminals are always on the lookout for such personal information to conduct various nefarious activities such as identity thefts, scams, and corporate espionage.

"It appears to have originated from a resume aggregator service given the sheer volume and detailed information," it added.

Cyble indexed this information at ‘AmIbreached.com; – Cyble's data breach monitoring and notification platform.

Cyble researchers have identified a sensitive data breach on the dark web where an actor has leaked personal details of nearly 29 million Indian job seekers from various states. 

"Cyble's team is still investigating this further and will be updating their article as they bring more facts to the surface,” it said in a statement.

Cyble said it has acquired the leaked data. 

The same cyber security firm earlier exposed that Bengaluru-based edtech firm Unacademy was hacked.

According to Cyble researchers, nearly 22 million Unacademy user accounts were affected and the data was dumped and sold on Dark Web.

'We would like to assure our users that no sensitive information such as financial data or location has been breached," said Hemesh Singh, Co- Founder and CTO, Unacademy, in a statement.

In April, hackers sold personal data of a whopping 267 million Facebook users for just Rs 41,500 (approximately 500 Euros) that includes email addresses, names, Facebook IDs, dates of birth and phone numbers.

No passwords of the 267 million Facebook users were exposed by the hacker, according to Cyble.

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