New land acquisition bill won’t bring relief to tribals Debate over land acquisition for “public purposes” has turned into a chasing game for more compensation. There is political competition over which ruling party gives more money as compensation for land. It has become a “we v them” game. In between we have lost track of the key issues related to land acquisition. This long-standing debate never revolved around compensation alone. To begin...

Madhya Pradesh is betting cash incentives will curb population growth and improve the ‘life cycle’ of the girl child, but experts question the efficacy of such policies in addressing deep-rooted social prejudices Visitors trudging down the dusty village road are greeted by a giant billboard featuring a smiling Shivraj Singh Chouhan, the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, hugging two young girls. The tagline in Hindi reads: Gaon ki beti, kisse chhoti...

The West Bengal assembly on Tuesday passed a bill to return to some of the original owners their land in Singur, which had been acquired by the previous Left Front government for the Nano project. In doing so, chief minister Mamata Banerjee kept her pre-poll promise to the electorate, which gave her Trinamool Congress, a resounding majority in the elections. The Singur Land Rehabilitation and Development Bill cites “non-commissioning of the...

The first casualty of the new policy could be NTPC’s proposed plant in Burdwan district West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee may soon announce a new land use policy which says the government will not acquire land for industrial projects, leaving it to project promoters to do so. “They (companies) operate in a market economy, so must deal with market forces. They shouldn’t ask the (state) government to acquire land for them,”...

-The Hindu   This Bill is for meting out justice to people who have been wronged: Mamata The West Bengal Assembly on Tuesday passed by voice vote the Singur Land Rehabilitation and Development Bill, 2011, even as the Opposition led by Sura Kanta Mishra of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), staged a walkout saying that they could not accept a Bill which would grant only leaseholds and not ownerships, create a...