It was the end of a long, tiring and humid day. Sitting near the bamboo gate of his 'precious' betel vineyard, 70-year-old Narayan Mandal said despondently, "I don't want to migrate, once again." Mandal, a resident of Gobindpur village in Orissa's Jagatsinghpur district, is one of the many opposing the state government's ambitious $12 billion Posco steel project. For the last six years, three gram panchayats - Dhinkia, Nuagaon and Gada...

The Noida-Greater Noida imbroglio will be instructive for the draft land acquisition bill In The Works...     * Government to acquire land, “public purpose” to be redefined     * Land acquisition only after getting written consent of 80 per cent of landowners     * Monitoring authority to be set up at the Centre and states to ensure compliance     * Payment component split into part-cash-down and remaining in annuity for 33 years     * Post...

-The Business Standard   The week-long deadlock between United Action Committee (UAC), a pro-Posco group and the Jagatsinghpur district administration has been resolved following the apology tendered by the district officials for last Saturday's incident in which police had attacked innocent land losers. The district officials assured to take expeditious steps to fulfill UAC's six-point charter of demands. These demands included employment to each family, contract work to local people and employment...

In the wake of Dreze quitting NAC, Mander vows to fight for changes. Differences between the National Advisory Council (NAC) and the government have come out in the open over the Food Security Bill, which was approved by a Group of Ministers this month. While Jean Dreze, who had earlier quit the working group on food security after recommendations by the members were diluted by the NAC itself, chose to quit the...

-PTI   Against the backdrop of the Noida land controversy, Chief Justice of India S.H. Kapadia on Sunday described as the “biggest problem” the situation in which the Supreme Court is called upon to give ex post facto approval to projects after crores were invested. Speaking at an international seminar here, he said: “The most acute problem over the years the Supreme Court has faced is that the plans, the buildings, the...