In a major setback to the encroachers, the district administration has begun reclaiming land worth hundreds of crores of rupees from different areas of the city. Buildings constructed illegally on agricultural land along National Highway 8 were razed on Monday, while notices were issued to other encroachers. According to district administration, hundreds of acres of land given for agricultural purpose was misused by the owners and sold off illegally. The...

EVEN though the Right to Information Act guarantees citizens their right to know and expose corruption in government offices, increasing attacks on RTI activists have put this most important right in jeopardy. The RTI Act was enacted after a long struggle by civil rights organisations. However, those who dare question the ways of the powers that be and expose them are eliminated in cold-blooded murders. The manner in which Amit...

A Hamburg-based lab, Eurofins, has alleged high levels of pesticide residue in Indian rice, basmati and non basmati. This is likely to start a long-drawn legal battle and for the time being jeopardise around $300m in basmati exports alone to Europe. The first batch of legal correspondence from the grain traders, a precedent to formal legal action, will be exchanged with the Hamburg-based private testing firm, Eurofins and Dr Speck...

The 2010 Seeds Bill that has been introduced in Parliament does address some of the major concerns in the aborted 2004 version, but strangely a number of important correctives – on regulation, consistency and punishment – that had been incorporated in the 2008 version (which lapsed in 2009) have now been modified or dropped altogether. What forces are pushing the government to act against the interests of India’s farmers? The third...

“Consider increasing quantum of food supply to BPL population” ‘Consider opening fair price shops for all the 30 days in a month' A Bench passed the order, taking on record affidavit filed by Centre To deal with the problem of foodgrains rotting in godowns, the Supreme Court on Thursday asked the Centre to consider distributing them at “very low cost” or “no cost” as a short term measure. A Bench of Justices Dalveer Bhandari...