Two days after the government scrapped a bauxite mining project in Orissa, Rahul Gandhi visited Niyamgiri, the ground zero of the anti-mine protests and told tribals that he was their sipahi in Delhi. Around the same time, farmers in Uttar Pradesh said they wouldn’t sell their land at the rates the government was offering. India is growing fast, but hassles over the acquisition of land are going to be the...

The Sonia Gandhi-headed National Advisory Council is getting ready with its version of what the proposed land acquisition law and the accompanying rehabilitation and resettlement law should be. The bills are scheduled to be introduced in the winter session of Parliament after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s assurance to Rahul Gandhi. A note drafted by advisory council member N.C. Saxena, which was handed over to panel members when they last met in August,...

Among the various definitions of "noise" is this one: "Something that draws public notice". And "Making Noise" is precisely what groups all over India are doing, or planning to do, in the days ahead in order to wake up the government to its promises. In the year 2000, India was among the countries that had signed on to achieve, by 2015, the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). These goals...

Existing and prospective industry and mining players of Jharkhand are apprehensive about the draft mining bill, which seeks to make them share 26 per cent of profits with locals. A group of ministers (GoM) approved the draft bill on September 17. Speaking to The Telegraph, Jindal Steel & Power Limited’s (JSPL) senior deputy general manager (corporate affairs) V.P. Sharan said: “The proposed clause — sharing profits with local people — sounds...

The green hills -- those that once used to soothe the entire region through the stilly silence, and fill it with the great wonder of multitudinousness -- have suddenly turned into a valley of death. First Diarrhea and then Cholera, the quiet bosom of the picturesque Raygada district is today torn by the screams of pain and loss of lives. People are dying like flies and hundreds are lying on...