Orissa’s Jagatsinghpur district administration today indefinitely put on hold the land acquisition process for the 12-million-tonne Posco steel plant. “The dismantling of betel vineyards for land acquisition in Dhinkia gram panchayat has been suspended till further instructions. However, officials have gone ahead with other work such as clearing the fruit-bearing trees from the project villages in two other gram panchayats,” said Paradip additional district magistrate Saroj Kanta Choudhury. On the other hand,...

-The Business Standard   The government’s cup of woes with regard to the much-hyped Posco project seem to be brimming over. Even as the anti-Posco activists have forced the Jagatsinghpur district administration to stop land acquisition for the project at Gobindpur and Dhinkia, the project supporters, who had assisted the officials in an almost trouble-free land acquisition in Gadakujang and Nuagaon panchayats, are now peeved with the administration for non-fulfilment of...

Around 10 platoons of armed police came to Gobindpur in the morning and went back to their camps, citing “inclement weather”. But long before the cops came, Biswambar Mohanty, a Std 9 student of Kapteswar Vidyapitha of Gobindpur village, was up there with a torn umbrella at the Sandy fields that separated Gobindpur and Nuagaon. Just a few feet away, a barefoot Soni Parmanik, 5, clad in a grimy yellow frock,...

-Newsonair.com   Notwithstanding its geographically small size and tiny population, Sikkim excels in implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. About three fourth of the one lakh rural households of the state have been provided with the job cards so far under the scheme, which kicked off in the state five years ago. The Nodal Officer for implementation of MGNREGS and Special Secretary in the State's Rural Management and Development...

The Mumbai police suspect that Mid Day scribe Jyotirmoy Dey may have been killed at the instance of a south Mumbai businessman who is into smuggling of red Sandalwood. "Dey was working on a story that could have exposed him. The businessman, through his underworld contacts, executed the murder. This is one of the key motives that has emerged from our interrogation," a police officer said. The businessman offered Rs 10...