The West Bengal govt's role as a non-market intermediary in an essentially private land transaction is questionable The West Bengal government has passed a new legislation that transfers the land back to those who refused to accept the compensation that they were offered during the acquisition of their lands for the Tata Nano factory. The Tata group has promptly gone to court claiming that this is an unconstitutional Act. Surely one...

-The Economic Times Reports say that land acquisition for the proposed mega plant of Korean steel major Posco, off Paradip in coastal Orissa, has come to a grinding halt following incessant protests by men, women and children in the affected villages in the area, especially Dhinkia and Govindpur. It is now glaringly evident that a sorry lack of vision in garnering land for project implementation is stalling industry, new jobs and...

For the tribal women of Orissa, plucking leaves off the tendu shrub is a way of life. Laborious and long hours spent on the job barely give the impoverished community enough to survive. Nuapada: There is a local song that poignantly captures the reality of the tendu leaf gatherers of Orissa’s Nuapada district: Chho chhoko, bhunji loka, patar tudle laagsi bhoka (we are Bhunj tribals/while plucking tendu leaves, we feel hunger). I...

From the Middle East to Madagascar, high prices are spawning land grabs and ousting dictators. Welcome to the 21st-century food wars. In the United States, when world wheat prices rise by 75 percent, as they have over the last year, it means the difference between a $2 loaf of bread and a loaf costing maybe $2.10. If, however, you live in New Delhi, those skyrocketing costs really matter: A doubling in...

Land acquisition and involuntary displacement have been the fountainhead of enormous destitution of millions of invisible people since Independence. Generations of those sacrificed for ‘development’ are farmers and farm workers, and many are fragile tribal people and forest gatherers. By coercive displacement and dispossession, governments pauperise its poorest people, and its food-growers, so that the ‘nation’ can prosper and grow. Rage at persisting State injustice of coercive displacement frequently spills onto...