-PTI   Against the backdrop of the farmers' stir in Greater Noida, Sonia Gandhi-led NAC today proposed that acquisition of land for development should have consent of three-fourth of village councils and provide for compensation six times the registered value. At its meeting chaired by Gandhi here, the NAC reached a consensus on combining the Land Acquisition (Amendment) Bill, and Resettlement and Rehabilitation Bill into a single National Development, Acquisition, Displacement and...

-The Business Standard   The Land Acquisition for the 12 million tonne Posco steel plant in Orissa has picked up pace with United Action Committee, a pro Posco outfit active at the project site near Paradip, extending its support to the process. On the fifth day of the exercise today, the revenue officials demolished 36 betel vines on the government land and distributed compensation of Rs 57 lakh to the beneficiaries in...

-DNA   Populism is the buzzword these days in the government and it seems ministries are competing with each other to win the race in UPA. While the mining ministry had proposed that companies will have to share a part of their profits with the people whose land is acquired for mining purposes, rural development minister Vilasrao Deshmukh has proposed a moon to farmers. Coming as it does in the backdrop of...

The Supreme Court on Tuesday urged the government to negotiate compensation with farmers before acquiring land for development purposes because paying a "pittance" caused heart burn. The court told additional solicitor general P P Malhotra to "advise the government to set up a committee to negotiate and fix a settled price for land because at a time when land prices are increasing manifold, the government cannot pay them a pittance"....

Villagers in Nuagaon, Gadakujang and Dhinkia have accused the United Action Committee (UAC) of helping the government acquire betelvines for the proposed Posco project. Ranjan Swain of Nuagaon, said, "For five years, the betelvines were a stumbling block for Posco to acquire land for its Rs 52,000 crores project at Gadakujang, Dhinkia and Nuagaon gram panchayats. But now their movement against Posco is falling like ninepins and the authority has...