-The Guardian The government's decision to allow major infrastructure projects to go ahead without obtaining consent for forest clearance paves the way for the violation of village land rights, say rights groups Land and tribal rights in India have been dealt a new blow after the government announced last week that major infrastructure projects will be exempt from obtaining consent for forest clearance from tribal communities living in the forest, a decision...

-The Times of India More than five months after the CBI began investigating Coalgate, the agency is yet to receive hundreds of files from the coal ministry as it probes charges of criminality in allocation of coal blocks to private players. Although CBI has been sifting through an enormous mass of information regarding coal block allocations that the CAG has said caused a loss of Rs 1.86 lakh crore to the government,...

-Governance Now But his eminence is not worth a vote for Mayawati, Paswan and others baying for his blood In an age where 22-second sound bites become the source of heated political debate and vacuous intellectual discourse, eminent sociologist Ashis Nandy’s indiscretion may seem unpardonable. Clearly, he is too old to adapt to bites-induced intellectualism, making him almost incompatible with an impatient class of social elites whose intellectual span is defined by...

-The Economic Times When asked where the coal blocks will come up, the forest officer draws a clover-shaped map. Take the right at the traffic intersection, he says, and you will enter Pathriya Dand coal block. Keep going for 11 km and the road turns to the left, which is where Gidhmudi coal block is. Come back to the main road, cross over to the other side, and you will enter...

-Frontline The Land Acquisition, Resettlement and Rehabilitation Bill is an attempt to circumvent the hurdles before acquisition, such as rehabilitation of land losers, without much increasing the cost of land. THE preamble to the draft Land Acquisition, Resettlement and Rehabilitation (LARR) Bill is very noble; it talks about a “humane, informed, consultative and transparent process for land acquisition for industrialisation, development of essential infrastructural facilities and urbanisation with the least disturbance...