Land is contentious. With urbanisation and demand for non-agricultural use, coupled with lack of employment and skills for those in small-holder and subsistence-level agriculture, this is understandable. In western Europe, especially in Britain, and more especially in England, land markets were freed up before the Industrial Revolution and access to education and skills became more broad-based. We haven't introduced reforms that enable people to move out of agriculture, or diversify...

A senior forest official from the Centre is visiting Jharkhand tomorrow to review a state proposal to declare Dalma forests and its adjoining areas in the Singhbum region an eco-sensitive zone, a move that has been opposed by Tata Steel. In March, the state forest department had drafted an exhaustive plan to create a protective zone around 10km perimeter of the Dalma forests to protect the area that is a natural...

The Orissa government suspends the land acquisition for the Posco project in the face of stiff opposition from the people. SIX years ago, when the South Korean steel giant Posco arrived in Orissa with the biggest ever foreign direct investment that had come the country's way, it was expected to help rid the economically backward State of its ‘poor' tag and bring prosperity. Posco had won the $12 billion deal at...

West Bengal: Mamata Banerjee moves closer to keeping her promise to return to ‘unwilling' farmers the land given to Tata Motors. WITH the passage of the Singur Land Rehabilitation and Development Bill, 2011, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee got one step closer to keeping the promise made to the people of Singur that she would reclaim the land allocated to Tata Motors and return it to “unwilling” farmers (that...

-The Indian Express   We don’t want any more Nandigrams,” said the Supreme Court, hearing the petition on the Allahabad high court’s cancellation of land acquisition projects in Greater Noida, because of the complaint that this land was acquired for industrial purposes and then transferred for residential use. The court also warned the UP government that it would have to intervene if the state relied on the urgency clause to take...