-PTI   The CPI today welcomed Mamata Banerjee Government's decision to return land to unwilling farmers in Singur and said it was improper for the CPI(M) to acquire farmland for the Tata project. "The decision of returning land to the unwilling farmers of Singur is good. We are always against taking agricultural land and there is no objection in returning the land," CPI General Secretary AB Bardhan said. Criticising the CPI(M) for acquiring...

-The Telegraph   Mamata Banerjee today announced that her government would not acquire land at New Town in Rajarhat anymore. “There will be no further acquisition of land in Rajarhat-New Town,” the chief minister said this evening after a meeting with housing minister Shyama Prasad Mukherjee. Labour minister Purnendu Bose, the vice-chairperson of the Housing Infrastructure Development Corporation (Hidco), its managing director Saurabh Das and law minister Malay Ghatak were also present. Mamata...

As expected, the government and the team led by Anna Hazare have disagreed on vital points. The question of including the prime minister within the ambit of the lokpal is being falsely blown out of proportion by government apologists.         Though the head of the government, the prime minister is only the first among equals. In a democracy, a political vacuum does not arise if the PM finds himself under...

-The Times of India   Unperturbed over the stiff protest against the proposed Posco steel plant, the Orissa government on Tuesday said it would start project-related work in areas already acquired in Jagatsinghpur district. The government, however, suspended further land acquisition for the time being. "We have already acquired 1,800 acres of land for the proposed plant near Paradip and are beginning project-related work in the area already acquired," said chief...

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...