Mamata Banerjee today lent her voice to a pitch to facilitate land acquiSITion for a life-saving project — an uncommon plea that betrayed the government’s frustration at the slow pace despite the urgency and the promise of generous compensation. The chief minister persuaded the people of Sunderbans to offer their land to build embankments in low-lying areas of South 24-Parganas, which were devastated by the Aila cyclone in 2009. The embankment project...

-The Telegraph   Land protesters today uprooted a portion of the fencing for the airport city project at Andal near Durgapur claiming the plot belonged to them and alleged that they were yet to get compensation. The crowd of over 50, which included farmers, share-croppers and farm labourers, marched to the SITe in Dakshinkhanda area, 200km from Calcutta, around 11.30am. They first shouted slogans and then yanked off barbed wires put up for the...

The Centre's National Food Security Bill could face some hitches, irrespective to which party forms government in Punjab as both the Congress and Akali Dal-BJP have promised to diversify agricultural production by moving towards cash or commercial crops.  The poll promise by political parties to influence Punjab farmer to also grow crops other than wheat and paddy gives further weight to agriculture minister Sharad Pawar's warning that implementation of food security...

For the Government of India the first phase of the national solar mission has been a grand success. It not only managed to attract industry to invest in the generation of an energy considered costly, but also dramatically drove down the cost of producing this energy. In its celebration, little did the government realise that a major conglomerate had subverted rules to acquire a stake in the solar mission much...

-The Telegraph A judge in a key Gujarat riot case today walked down the alleys where the pogrom occurred a decade back, video-graphing the spots and talking to some of the 95 victims’ families. Jyotsna Yagnik’s viSIT to Ahmedabad’s Naroda Patia, where one of the worst episodes of violence unfolded during the 2002 riots, came at the request of defence lawyers. Mobs allegedly instigated by Mayaben Kodnani, a former minister in the Narendra...