After two weeks of smooth land acquisition for Posco’s 12-million tonne steel plant in Jagatsinghpur, the district administration faced massive protests at Dhinkia, the epicentre of anti-Posco protests, as hundreds of children and women prostrated, preventing the entry of police and land acquisition officials. The land acquisition drive started on May 18 and so far, the district administration has acquired about 1,300 acres in Nuagaon and Gadakujang grampanchayats. But the district...

-PTI   Asking the Orissa government to refrain from "forcible" land acquisition for the POSCO project near Paradip, Congress today committed its support to the people unwilling to give their land for the South Korean steel maker. Congress sent a four-member team headed by party's chief spokesman Prof Kailash Acharya to Dhinkia area where about 600 policemen were deployed to acquire land for POSCO project. "Though chief minister Naveen Patnaik had announced that...

-IBN   Asking the Orissa government to consult opposition political parties before signing fresh MoU with Posco-India, BJP today said it would oppose any move to allow a captive port and iron ore swapping for the proposed steel project."In order to safeguard the interest of the state, the government must hold consultations with opposition parties and take their views on Posco project before signing the fresh MoU," senior BJP leader and...

The Orissa government would wait for the views of its department secretaries in the next two weeks before taking a call on the renewal of the MoU with Posco. A high-level meeting of chaired by Chief Secretary B K Patnaik on Tuesday deferred a decision on recommending the revised Posco MoU to the Chief Minister as several department secretaries indicated that they needed time to study the new points. The government...

While A. Raja's alleged shenanigans in the Telecom Ministry have been grabbing all the headlines, some activists are now urging the CBI to focus its spotlight on the tainted DMK leader's earlier role as Environment Minister. For example, Mr. Raja granted Korean steel giant Posco its first major statutory clearance in 2007 by approving the captive port component of its controversial Rs. 52,000 crore steel plant project in Orissa. Interestingly,...