The Orissa government on Saturday deferred land acquisition for the proposed mega steel project of Posco till Monday, as pressure mounted on it for withdrawal of armed policemen from three gram panchayats in Jagatsinghpur district. The authorities announced the postponement owing to bad Weather, hours before social activist Swami Agnivesh visited Govindpur to express solidarity with the agitating villagers who have formed a human barricade at the entry point to their village, with...

-PTI   It is force versus children in the battle for land to set up South Korean giant POSCO's proposed mega steel project in Orissa's Jagatsinghpur district where the anti-displacement stir has entered the decisive phase. While a determined state government has accused the POSCO Pratirodh Sangram Samiti (PPSS), a body spearheading agitation, of using the children as a "shield", the villagers sought to differ. "We involve children in the agitation to counter...

Around 10 platoons of armed police came to Gobindpur in the morning and went back to their camps, citing “inclement Weather”. But long before the cops came, Biswambar Mohanty, a Std 9 student of Kapteswar Vidyapitha of Gobindpur village, was up there with a torn umbrella at the sandy fields that separated Gobindpur and Nuagaon. Just a few feet away, a barefoot Soni Parmanik, 5, clad in a grimy yellow frock,...

It's that time of the year when Kishore Lal Singh's eyes almost involuntarily scan the skies. The monsoons are coming. In the months ahead, for this Bhil farmer growing cotton, maize and soya south of the Malwa plateau in Madhya Pradesh, life will again hang on a knife's edge. If it rains well, his two bighas (about four basketball courts) of cotton will yield 1,000 kg. If not, he will...

Rise to the occasion, PM tells Railways Ministry yet to finalise Food Security Bill draft Poor storage and movement of foodgrains are a matter of worry for the second consecutive year to the UPA government. Procurement during the current rabi marketing season has already exceeded last year's level. The Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution is bothered about the likely scenario of destruction of procured foodgrains during what is being described...