-PTI   Alleging forcible land acquisition for Posco steel project near Paradip, five political parties today resolved to go for a civil disobedience agitation in front of the state secretariat on Monday.The leaders of five parties comprising CPI, CPI(M), Forward Bloc, RJD and Samajwadi Party in a joint meeting condemened the state government's alleged act of using force to acquire land from the residents of the three gram panchayats under Ersama...

Brushing aside protests from a section of landowners, a determined district administration today stepped up its land acquisition drive in Gadakujang and Nuagaon gram panchayats. Simultaneously, the authorities also worked out strategies for taking up the drive in the Dhinkia gram panchayat, the nerve-centre of anti-Posco movement. “The land acquisition process was peaceful barring a few cases where people expressed unwillingness but we managed to prevail over them,” said special land acquisition...

The Orissa government on Friday came down heavily on anti- Posco protesters by arresting 18 villagers, including a prominent anti-Posco leader, and carried on with its land acquisition drive for the South Korean steel major's 12 million tonnes steel plant near Paradip. The government officials also seized a betel vine belonging to Basudev Behera, one of the leaders of the Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti (PPSS). The police detained Behera in...

Tension prevailed in the area chosen for the proposed Posco steel project in Orissa's Jagatsinghpur on Friday after 17 persons opposing land acquisition for the venture were taken into custody. They include Basudev Behera, Panchayat Samiti member of Gadakujang gram panchayat and vice-president of Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti, the organisation leading the anti-Posco agitation since 2005, four women and five children. The villagers, who were picked up by the policemen from Noliasahi...

RTI activist Ramesh Agarwal has been arrested and chained to a hospital bed Chhattisgarh's Raigarh after a complaint by business group, the Jindals. Agarwal was arrested on May 28 by Chhatisgarh Police based on a complaint filed by the Jindals. Photographs available with CNN-IBN clearly show that Ramesh has been handcuffed. Agarwal is apparently paying the price for being a whistleblower as he had written to Union Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh...