The Orissa government suspends the land acquisition for the Posco project in the face of stiff opposition from the people. SIX years ago, when the South Korean steel giant Posco arrived in Orissa with the biggest ever foreign direct investment that had come the country's way, it was expected to help rid the economically backward State of its ‘poor' tag and bring prosperity. Posco had won the $12 billion deal at...

Rather than shutting its doors on ‘civil society’, the government should be thanking its stars that the latter wants to make law, not war. Distributing tee-shirts with this slogan would be a better use of the government’s ‘hearts and minds’ funds than the integrated action plan to counter Naxals, or the army’s tourism trips to Pune for Kashmiri schoolgirls. The UPA regime has been unprecedented for the spate of legislation that...

-The Hindu   The West Bengal government on Monday tabled the Singur Land Rehabilitation and Development Rules Act, 2011, which gives the government the option of giving unwilling land owners at the disputed plot at Singur a quantum of land equivalent to what they had lost. The Rules, which were laid in the Legislative Assembly by State Industry Minister Partha Chatterjee, defines an unwilling owner as someone who owns a plot of...

-The Telegraph   Tata Motors refused stay by Calcutta High Court, government takes Delhi precaution Tata Motors said tonight the company would move the Supreme Court after failing to obtain a stay order against land distribution in Singur from Calcutta High Court after two attempts. “As per the country’s legal procedures, the company will agitate the matter before the Supreme Court,” it said. The statement came at the end of a day during which...

One of the most shameful pieces of legislation in our penal code is the continuance of ‘Sedition’ in Section 124A of the Penal Code which provides that whoever excites or attempts to excite disaffection towards the government established by law in India shall be punished with imprison-ment for life. The expression disaffection includes disloyalty and all feelings of enmity. This provision was included by the British Government in 1870 as...