-The Financial Express   All India Congress Committee general secretary Rahul Gandhi has supported the demand to shift Posco India’s 12 million tonne Steel project in Orissa to an alternative site. “If there is adequate non-agriculture land available, then that would be a better alternative,” Rahul Gandhi said. The Orissa Congress is demanding that the project be shifted to a place near Dhinkia where over 7,000 acres of barren land is available....

A host of Steel-manufacturing units are keen to set up plants in Karnataka, and all want captive mines. SOUTH KOREA'S Posco is not the only Steel-maker keen to do business in Karnataka. The State's estimated 9,000 million tonnes of good-quality iron ore reserves, which is the second largest in India, the State government's assurances on a smooth land acquisition process, the availability of water and the promise of speedy regulatory clearances...

  THERE is money on offer, but the farmers of Halligudi, a hamlet of 5,500 people in Karnataka's Gadag district, are hardly happy at the prospect of 3,382 acres (one acre is 0.4 hectare) of farmland being acquired for a Rs.32,336-crore Steel plant south of National Highway 63, which runs between Karwar and Bellary. The plant is to be set up by the Indian subsidiary of the South Korean Steel major Posco...

-The Deccan Herald "Law is misused for business interests." There is reason for serious concern over the aggressive acquisition of farm land by the Karnataka government on behalf of corporates. It has notified 3,382 acres in Halligudi in Gadag district where Korean Steel giant Posco proposes to set up a 6 million tonne per annum integrated Steel plant and a 450-mw captive power plant. Farmers in the area, whose lands have been...

There will soon be a new set of glass doors at Krishi Bhavan. The newly elevated Cabinet Minister for Rural Development Jairam Ramesh plans to bring the doors — a signature element of his interior décor right from his early days at the Commerce Ministry — to his new office. Over the last two tumultuous years at the Environment Ministry, those doors have symbolised the transparency and accessibility he claims...