Chief minister Nitish Kumar’s ambitious new effort on land survey and consolidation could become another perilous flirtation with the hornet’s nest. Days after its unveiling at the presentation of the first annual report card of Nitish’s second term, a top minister in his cabinet sounded both alarm and caution on the land survey proposal. “Land, as the chief minister himself knows, is an extremely sensitive and volatile issue,” he told The...

West Bengal on Wednesday finalized a new land policy under which it will seize industrial land not used for five years. If the land had been acquired from farmers, the government will redistribute it among original owners, the new policy says, expanding the scope for returning farm land taken over for industrial use. Though cleared by the state cabinet on Wednesday, the new land policy wasn’t formally announced in view of two...

The rural development ministry has put out a draft of the proposed National Land Acquisition and Rehabilitation and Resettlement (LARR) bill for public comment. There is no doubt it is a big improvement on the 1894 colonial law that was long overdue for repeal; in particular, it is intended to be far more farmer-friendly. Yet, in several respects the Bill is patently inadequate, both in its objectives and the mechanics...

IF YOU walked down the streets of Jantar Mantar in New Delhi between 3-5 August, you would see what TV cameras aren’t putting out on primetime news. Thousands of farmers from Jhabua in Madhya Pradesh to Rohtak in Haryana. On protest. Against the systematic grabbing of their land by various state governments across the political spectrum. On one side of the road, on large green carpets, are about 3,000 farmers,...

-The Hindu   A joint committee of krishak sabhas (farmers' organisations) of four Left parties have given a call to their units across the State to observe “Haroa Diwas” on July 14. It would be in protest against the police firing and attacks by armed Trinamool Congress activists on Saturday on farmers and Sharecroppers who had returned to their land in the Haroa area of West Bengal's North Paraganas district after having...