New Delhi: The Vidarbha farmer's widow whose plight was highlighted by Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi in Parliament, has complained about the Congress led-government in Maharashtra to BJP's Rajnath Singh. With Rahul Gandhi citing her example, Kalavati soon became the face of struggling widows of Vidharbha's suicide zone in Maharashtra where thousands of farmers have died in the last one decade. Kalavati's grouse is that 4,000 other widows have not been given...

Bhubaneswar: Orissa’s steel and mines minister Raghunath Mohanty is faced with the most difficult task of his tenure—orchestrating smooth Land Acquisition for South Korean steel maker Posco, maintaining peace in the villages affected by it and responding to pressure from the Central government that wants to showcase the 12-million-tonne (mt) project as one of the successes of its foreign investment policy. With the environment ministry giving its final clearance for the...

The Rural Development Ministry seems to be a familiar ground for Jairam Ramesh . No sooner was he given the new portfolio, he announced that the two bills related to Land Acquisition would be clubbed. The minister spells out his priorities in an exclusive interview with ET. Excerpts: What will be the key motif for the omnibus Land Acquisition law you are proposing? The bill will be facilitative not restrictive....

Allahabad : The Allahabad High Court on Tuesday set aside yet another Land Acquisition by the Greater Noida Industrial Authority. Using the urgency clause, the Authority had acquired 589 hectares of land in Patwari village, in Noida Extension, in the name of industrial development but had given it away to private builders for residential and commercial projects. The decision comes barely a fortnight after the Supreme Court upheld the high court’s...

Though it remains susceptible to leakages and can do with greater oversight, the National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme (NREGS) appears to have boosted rural incomes by providing job seekers at least 100 days' guaranteed labour every financial year. That's why the Union rural development ministry's reported advisory to states to 'informally' suspend NREGS operations during peak farming season isn't a very good idea. For starters, the move would be legally...