A parliamentary panel has cited the practice in developed countries to reject a key provision in the land acquisition bill allowing the government to acquire plots for private companies. The committee said in the US, Japan and Canada, land is purchased by private enterprises, not acquired by the state. Why should India continue this “anomalous practice”, asked the parliamentary standing committee on rural development in its report on the Land Acquisition,...

The proposed liberalisation of the mining and minerals sector is an assault on the rightful owners of the land and its resources. Tribal and indigenous communities across the world have been asserting their rights to the mineral wealth often found under the land they own or possess or have traditional rights to. They have been historically denied even a share of that huge wealth, leave alone legal rights of ownership. Under...

-The Business Standard Hydropower vs environmentalists in India's hills The green bench of the Himachal Pradesh High Court has ordered Jaiprakash Associates Ltd to dismantle the thermal power unit at the company’s cement plant campus in Bagheri, near Solan (Himachal Pradesh), and also pay Rs 100 crore as damages for obtaining environmental clearance in a “dubious” manner. The bench, moreover, turned down the company’s plea that, since the thermal plant was...

The government has taken exception to the `biases' in the United NationsDevelopment Programme's (UNDP) Asia Pacific Human Development report, titled, One Planet, which was released on Thursday. UNDP, required to play a neutral role in international governance, has recommended that India and other countries in the Asia Pacific region take greater responsibility to reduce emissions and warned that 'inclusive growth' would increase emissions, a trade-off that India cannot afford. Pointing...

-Express News Service Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar on Saturday expressed reservations about the new Land Acquisition and Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill, 2011, saying it would in particular pose hurdles in setting up industries and creating new dams. The Bill was cleared by the Union cabinet in September and has now been sent to the joint legislative committee. Quoting provisions of the Bill, such as the promise to pay five times the market...