Armed policemen accompanying officials return to their makeshift camps Congress legislators to raise issue during Assembly session Chief Secretary: administration trying to carry out peaceful land acquisition As the agitation continued to intensify over the Posco steel project, the Jagatsinghpur district administration on Tuesday did not acquire any land for the venture but continued the construction of a boundary wall on the land acquired earlier. While senior leaders belonging to the Opposition Congress and the...

The officials were released by Balisahi residents with a warning that they should not return to acquire land In a dramatic turn of events, senior administration and police officials of Orissa's Jagatsinghpur district had a bitter experience on Monday when they went to carry out land acquisition for the proposed mega steel project of Posco. Women took the lead in expressing their anger when they threw their broomsticks at the Additional District...

-The Economic Times   Environment minister Jairam Ramesh has approved two mining proposals - one by Iifco and the other by the Rajasthan Rajya Vidyut Utpadan Nigam - on the fringes of the Hasdeo-Arand forest region in Chhattisgarh. Ramesh set aside the recommendation of the statutory body of the environment ministry, the Forest Advisory Committee , to reject the proposals. With Thursday's order, coal mining will be allowed in Tara, Parsa...

-The Hindu   Blocks not actually within the biodiversity-rich region, he says Stage-I forest clearance granted to three blocks in the region Ramesh over-ruled advice of his own Forest Advisory Committee to grant approval The bastion of Hasdeo-Arand has finally been broken. One year after saying that the coalfields of this heavily-forested, mineral rich region of Chhattisgarh would never be open to miners, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh has finally granted a stage-I forest clearance to...

Orissa’s Jagatsinghpur district administration today indefinitely put on hold the land acquisition process for the 12-million-tonne Posco steel plant. “The dismantling of betel vineyards for land acquisition in Dhinkia gram panchayat has been suspended till further instructions. However, officials have gone ahead with other work such as clearing the fruit-bearing trees from the project villages in two other gram panchayats,” said Paradip additional district magistrate Saroj Kanta Choudhury. On the other hand,...