As the administration and the anti-industry brigade scaled up preparations for a showdown at Dhinkia gram panchayat in Jagatsinghpur district within the next few days, five political parties on Monday staged a civil disobedience agitation opposing the ongoing Land Acquisition for Posco steel project. Activists of CPI, CPM, Forward Bloc, Rashtriya Janata Dal and Samajwadi Party took out a rally from the Railway Station to PMG Square in Bhubaneswar, raising...

-The Indian Express   AICC general secretary Digvijaya Singh on Tuesday criticised UP’s new Land Acquisition policy and said the Congress would approach court to quash the Land Acquisition notification of Bhatta-Parsaul. “The policy is a mere copy of the policy of the Congress government in Haryana, but it does not clarify certain points like at what rates the private players would acquire land. Moreover, it would not apply to those places...

The Orissa government would wait for the views of its department secretaries in the next two weeks before taking a call on the renewal of the MoU with Posco. A high-level meeting of chaired by Chief Secretary B K Patnaik on Tuesday deferred a decision on recommending the revised Posco MoU to the Chief Minister as several department secretaries indicated that they needed time to study the new points. The government...

-The Business Standard   Five political parties stage protest against Land Acquisition Tension prevailed on Monday at the proposed Posco project site at Gobindpur village under Dhinkia panchayat as ten platoons of armed police conducted flag march ostensibly to create a fear psychosis among the local people ahead of the Land Acquisition process at trouble-torn Dhinkia panchayat. The situation is going to very critical at Gobindpur as the activists of Posco Pratirodha Sangram Samiti...

-The Hindu   The Uttar Pradesh government's new Land Acquisition policy, announced in the face of farmers' protests and impending elections, is a significant improvement over existing practices. It is sounder than the amendments to the central Act proposed by the UPA government, which have been awaiting enactment since 2007. Poor compensation calculated on rates based on the pre-development phase, a lack of consultation, and cumbersome procedures have marred the whole...