Seeing red over green

Jairam Ramesh and his ministry, it seems, cannot stay out of the news for long. Just when everyone thought that they were in for a quiet spell after Ramesh’s re-election to the Rajya Sabha, sparks are flying again after the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) withdrew the clearance given to a power project being promoted by Congress satrap and parliamentarian Naveen Jindal in Chhattisgarh. There was palpable shock when the ministry withdrew the terms of reference set for the project in March 2009, saying the company had started construction without clearance. The speculation centres on why the MoEF took such an unprecedented step since it has seldom withdrawn permission for a project. Is it the tough new face of the ministry one is seeing? One rumour doing the rounds is that Naveen Jindal has blotted his copy book with the Congress high command by taking the side of the regressive khap panchayats which rule Haryana and thus has emboldened the MoEF. With Jindal launching a well-publicised campaign to get his project off the ground, this power play is attracting more than the usual interest.