-The Hindu   The West Bengal Government on Thursday issued an ordinance that will enable it to reclaim 400 acres of disputed land (out of 997.11 acres) alleged to have been acquired at Singur from farmers against their wishes to set up the Tata Motors small car project, since relocated. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said the Governor had signed the ordinance and that the 400 acres would be returned to the owners. “As...

Problems of land acquisition once again led the Punjab government on Wednesday to scrap the prestigious project of self-contained integrated information technology and knowledge industry park — spread over an area of 1,276 acre — in Rajpura. This is the fourth project of the government which has been scraped due to land acquisition problems. According to sources, in a meeting chaired by Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, the state government decided...

-The Hindustan Times   The Congress in Himachal Pradesh wants cancelled an allotment of land made by the state government to yoga guru Baba Ramdev’s aide Acharya Balkrishna at 50% of the market price. Former prime minister Indira Gandhi had wanted to build a holiday home for the National Cadet Corps on the plot, the ownership of which vests in the governor of Himachal Pradesh. A makeshift Indira Holiday Home exists but the...

As the administration and the anti-industry brigade scaled up preparations for a showdown at Dhinkia gram panchayat in Jagatsinghpur district within the next few days, five political parties on Monday staged a civil disobedience agitation opposing the ongoing land acquisition for Posco steel project. Activists of CPI, CPM, Forward Bloc, Rashtriya Janata Dal and Samajwadi Party took out a rally from the Railway Station to PMG Square in Bhubaneswar, raising...

If access to information is the first step towards empowerment, then it is important to make Internet accessibility a human right because a lot of useful information, particularly relating to government schemes, is either unpublished or inaccessible by other means for most citizens The government’s approach towards universal Internet access is marred by dichotomy. While the Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005, calls Internet one of the most effective means of...