The Free Press Journal

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 Jack Ma’s back Protect the mangroves, Aaditya...

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That clashed with the ruling party's marathon campaign to reduce surging debt in China's financial system that prompted fears about a possible bank crisis and led rating agencies to cut Beijing's credit rating for government borrowing.

Some people suggested the ruling Communist Party was making an example of Ma to show entreprene­urs couldn't defy regulators. But finance experts said Xi's government was uneasy about Alibaba's dominance in retailing and Ant's potential financial risks. Anti-monopoly regulators warned executives Alibaba and five other tech giants in December not to use their dominance to block new competitor­s from entering their markets. The central bank and other regulators have ordered Ant to overhaul its business before its market debut can go ahead.

Alibaba's share price in Hong Kong is down 10% since October but recovered some of its loss from its low point this month. -- AP

He said that it was noted that the forest department is authorised to act on cases of mangrove destructio­n on government land under the Forest Act, 1927. ‘‘However, the forest department has no authority to take cognizance of mangrove destructio­n on private land. Such violations are dealt with under the Environmen­t (Protection) Act, 1986, read with the CRZ Notificati­on, 2011, and officers authorised to take cognizance of offences are the district collector, subdivisio­nal officers, the state pollution control board and the state environmen­t department,’’ he noted.

He recalled that the meeting was held under his chairmansh­ip in November last year and it was decided to approach the Centre for effective conservati­on of mangroves on private land, seeking its authorisat­ion enabling the forest department to take cognizance of CRZ violations on mangrove land. In a related developmen­t, Aaditya also urged Javadekar to instruct the National Centre for Sustainabl­e Coastal Management (NCSCM), Chennai, at the earliest,to expedite the finalisati­on of draft coastal zone management plans (CZMPs) of Greater Mumbai. He said that the CZMPs need to be prepared on 1:25000 and 1:4000 scales. The state government had engaged the NCSCM for preparatio­n of the CZMPs under the CRZ Notificati­on, 2019.

‘‘Accordingl­y, the NCSCM, Chennai, completed the preparatio­n of Draf t CZMPs 2019, on a 1:25,000 scale for Mumbai City, Mumbai Suburbs, Raigad, Ratnagiri, Sindhudurg, Thane and Palghar district areas. The public hearings on the draf t CZMPs have been conducted at the district level.

‘‘The NCSCM reviewed the preparatio­n of the Draf t CZMPs, 2019 and assured that soon these would be placed before its technical scrutiny committee for examinatio­n.’’ He reiterated that Centre needed to instruct the NCSCM to soon finalise the draf t CZMPs of Greater Mumbai.

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