Jayanthi Natarajan new MoEF minister

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Shri Jairam Ramesh, who was handling the Ministry of Environment and Forests as Minister of State (Independent Charge) has been made a Cabinet minister and is now in charge of Rural Development.

Ms. Jayanthi Natarajan is the new Minister of State for MoEF. She holds independent charge of the ministry.

Swearing in is scheduled for today ie. 12th July, 2011.

Sabyasachi

[Prashanth Gokul Dwarapu]

Mindless development has won over a sensible balancing act between industrial growth and conservation.The big bullies of the manufacturing industry have succeeded in influencing the Prime Minister to remove the roadblock in their way in the form Jairam Ramesh. Whatever be the controversies surrounding him over trivial matters,here was a minister who was genuinely concerned about environmental issues and tried to do
justice to his responsibility. Unfortunately he was too outspoken and tried to do too much for the environment which alarmed the industrialists. It is ofcourse much easier to get votes if they talk the language of development rather than conservation, so it was an easy decision for the Prime Minister to move his minister out of the way.

The new minister would have a mandate to go easy on green laws and show the green signal
to most industrial projects.

Its an unfortunate situation.