Green concerns

Jairam Ramesh, India’s minister for environment and forests, makes multiple headlines a day. In fact, the industry is still reeling with shock at the sudden activism and enforcement it sees at the ministry under Ramesh. When convinced of violations, he seems unmovable, bringing to a grinding halt, Anil Agarwal’s bauxite mining project in Orissa’s Niyamgiri hills, Posco’s forever-on-hold steel plant in Orissa, and Lavasa, the planned hill station near Pune. A new executive structure enforcing environment rules - the National Environment Assessment and Monitoring Authority - will come into being and Ramesh’s National Green Tribunal will become effective. Without doubt, he has brought much deserved attention and urgency to the environment.