Farmers affiliated to the Trinamool Congress whose agricultural land was acquired for a railway project are threatening a major agitation if their family members are not provided with jobs immediately. Their land was acquired for the proposed 20 km Dankuni-Furfura Sharif track in West Bengal and Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee had promised a job for every family whose land was taken.Agricultural landowners of Furfura Sharif, a major Muslim pilgrimage site...

A day labourer has complained to court that a panchayat pradhan in cahoots with a bank manager has thrust a loan of Rs 30,000 on him for which he had never applied, the allegation exposing how beneficiaries of village schemes are left at the mercy of influential rural leaders.Additional chief judicial magistrate Manoj Rai, after criticising the police role in the investigation, asked the Islampur subdivisional officer yesterday to inquire...

The UN climate summit reached the Cancun Agreement here early Saturday - but there was no mention of the extent to which industrialised countries would commit to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions after 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol's commitment period ends.Nor was there any agreement on a second commitment period of the protocol, only a decision to keep talking about it. The Kyoto Protocol is currently the only legally binding...

In response to growing frustration that the U.N. climate negotiations are not producing real-world results, individual nations, states and business are cobbling together patchwork solutions to preserve forests, produce clean energy and scrub pollution from the air.Under this new approach, businesses in California will offset their greenhouse gas emissions by funding tropical forest preservation in Mexico and Brazil; Japan will help pay for nuclear power plants in developing nations; and...

Halt ongoing negotiations, says open letterWith Prime Minister Manmohan Singh set to hold talks with his counterpart in Brussels on trade and economic issues, a broad civil society alliance on Thursday called on the European Commission and India to immediately halt the ongoing negotiations for an India-EU Free Trade Agreement.The India-EU summit on Friday is likely to give a political mandate for working towards the conclusion of the FTA in...