The debate in the Congress and the UPA government over land acquisition acquired a new edge with party president Sonia Gandhi favouring a balanced approach in securing land for industrial purposes without losing large fertile tracts. "New industries and infrastructure cannot be built without acquiring land. This is obvious and there is no argument about it. "But land acquisition must be done in a manner that it does not result...

Sitting on his father’s shoulders, two-year-old Rahul Kumar giggles and tugs on a lock of his father’s hair. A happy, healthy-looking boy, Rahul has already seen much of India. Born in a small village in northern Bihar, he has spent roughly half of his short life in Punjab, where his parents work as seasonal farm labourers. He has spent a few months in his parents’ village. The rest has been spent...

The Yamuna may be in spate near Delhi, states like Punjab, Haryana, Gujarat, Kerala and Tamil Nadu may be soaked wet and the Mithi River -- the lifeline of Mumbai -- could be flowing at the brim, but for people in the East and Northeast India the thirst for rain prolongs. They wait for the rain gods to smile upon them. Overall, this is one of the best monsoon India has...

Long before they gained currency as the real-life counterparts of the Na'vis portrayed by Hollywood blockbuster "Avatar", the author of the Vedanta verdict — Justice S H Kapadia — had made clear about how he saw the Dongaria Kondhs, who are officially classified as "primitive tribal group". Kapadia, now chief justice of India, described this tribe from Orissa as a people "living on grass". His unflattering, almost dismissive description came...

N C Saxena, who led the committee which recommended against permitting mining of the Niyamgiri hills in Orissa, says the same approach should be adopted for Andhra Pradesh’s mammoth Polavaram hydro project, too. If there is violation of the Forest Rights Act (FRA) there, too, it should not be allowed, as that is the law of the land, Saxena told Business Standard. The Polavaram dam being constructed on the Godavari River by...