The West Bengal govt's role as a non-market intermediary in an essentially private land transaction is questionable The West Bengal government has passed a new legislation that transfers the land back to those who refused to accept the compensation that they were offered during the acquisition of their lands for the Tata Nano factory. The Tata group has promptly gone to court claiming that this is an unconstitutional Act. Surely one...

-The Economic Times Reports say that land acquisition for the proposed mega plant of Korean steel major Posco, off Paradip in coastal Orissa, has come to a grinding halt following incessant protests by men, women and children in the affected villages in the area, especially Dhinkia and Govindpur. It is now glaringly evident that a sorry lack of vision in garnering land for project implementation is stalling industry, new jobs and...

The Calcutta High Court on Thursday directed the Hooghly District Magistrate to submit a report on the alleged incidents of pilferage and loot at the site of the Tata Motors car factory (since relocated), after the Singur Land Rehabilitation and Development Act, 2011 came into force.  Justice Soumitra Pal asked the District Magistrate to submit the report by 11 a.m. Friday, when hearing on Tata Motor's petition challenging the constitutional...

-The Hindu   Blocks not actually within the biodiversity-rich region, he says Stage-I forest clearance granted to three blocks in the region Ramesh over-ruled advice of his own Forest Advisory Committee to grant approval The bastion of Hasdeo-Arand has finally been broken. One year after saying that the coalfields of this heavily-forested, mineral rich region of Chhattisgarh would never be open to miners, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh has finally granted a stage-I forest clearance to...

A judicial inquiry has been ordered by the Nitish Kumar government into the police firing in Forbesganj on June 3 in which four Muslims were killed and several others injured. The Government would await its findings before taking action against anyone, said senior Janata Dal (United) leader Shivanand Tewari here on Tuesday. Talking to journalists, Mr. Tewari virtually justified the lack of any immediate compensation for the relatives of those killed,...