National Green Tribunal

India’s increasingly assertive National Green Tribunal, launched last October, has made its most high-profile ruling to date by suspending the environmental license given to the South Korean company Posco for building a steel plant in the state of Orissa and ordering a fresh review by the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF). The plant has faced stiff opposition from local people campaigning to save farmland and woodland. A government panel had been pushing for the license to be scrapped, but it was conditionally approved in January 2011.

India's National Green Tribunal (NGT) has ruled that it can listen to anyone's complaint that the environment requires protecting. The decision means any citizen can make a complaint against a project even if they are directly affected by it.