-The Hindu Land acquisition for the proposed steel project of Posco at Gobindpur village in Jagatsinghpur district of Odisha was halted and police force withdrawn from the locality on Wednesday following stiff opposition from the locals, particularly women and children. The land acquisition exercise that was resumed after a long gap on Sunday came to a halt after hundreds of agitating villagers and Leaders of different Opposition parties reached the spot where...

-The Economic Times Pharma companies sponsoring clinical trials in India would now need to compensate volunteers in cases of trial-related deaths or injuries. Firms and clinical research organisations failing to pay up, could face suspension of trials and even a permanent ban. The decision to make compensation mandatory in such cases comes four weeks after the Supreme Court chided the government for its sloppy regulation of clinical trials. A senior government official said...

-The Hindu In his article in The Hindu (editorial page, “Making a mockery of domestic gas pricing,” January 18, 2013, Surya P. Sethi attacks the gas pricing formula proposed by the Rangarajan Committee, curiously enough, for being based on numbers from foreign markets that do not reflect the supply, demand or cost of production in India. I say “curiously” because on the exact opposite side, domestic producers are also pillorying the committee’s...

-The Hindu Hearing of proposed 100-MW thermal power plant of KPR Industries postponed after stones thrown at dais Balabhadrapuram (East Godavari): The public hearing on the proposed 100 MW thermal power plant of KPR Industries (India) Limited on Wednesday between Dontamuru of Rangampeta mandal and Balabhadrapuram of Bikkavolu mandal in East Godavari district was disrupted by villagers and some ‘outsiders’. A total of 40 persons, including four policemen, were injured in lathi-charge and...

-The Hindu BJP-leaning candidate held for testing voters’ loyalty To prove that they had voted for a candidate who lost the gram panchayat elections, 100 people were allegedly forced by him and his campaign manager to put their hands in boiling oil in north Gujarat’s Sabarkantha district on Tuesday night. Though the gram panchayat elections were not fought on party symbols, the candidate, Dinesh Parmar of Deria village in Bayad taluk, 40 km...