A day after initiating land acquisition process for Posco-India’s mega steel plant project near Paradip, the Orissa government on Wednesday said 470 families could face displacement due to the mega plant. “The Rehabilitation and Periphery Development Advisory Committee (RPDAC) had already finalised a compensation package for the affected families,” Revenue and Disaster Management Minister Suryanarayan Patra informed the State Assembly. The steel major required 4,004 acres for the Rs. 51,000 crore project...

A RESEARCHER WORKING on the State of Panchayats Report (SOPR) 2008-09 met Mahangu Madiya in Chhattisgarh’s Bastar district, a dangerous place for gathering data. Madiya’s story was startling. In January, he was given Rs 55 lakh compensation for his land, but the amount is sitting in his bank account. He does not even own a mobile phone. “I am concerned with farming. My land is important to me. What will I...

WITH the introduction of short-term, high-yielding varieties of cereal and oil-seed crops, the cropping intensity has now reached almost 300 per cent in Punjab. Moreover, the intensive use of chemical fertilisers, insecticides and pesticides involve greater use of scarce groundwater resources. The water table has gone down alarmingly resulting in huge investment on installation of costly submersible pumps to draw water for irrigation. This does not auger well for sustainable...

Gujarat's business acumen and entrepreneurial zest is passé; the State's leap-frogging with 11 per cent agricultural growth, praised by the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) last year, is old hat too. What is new is this: Gujarat may now export more ‘kesar', the famous mango variety of the State, to West Asia than Maharashtra sells alphonso; the State has entered Goa market with cashew nut; and an Ahmedabad-based part-time...

Madvi Madka owns 4ha of land in Chingavaram in the Sukum block in central India. The district in which the block is located has become infamous after 6 April, killing of 76 policemen by the Maoists. This is the ground zero of the war between the Indian state and the Maoists, and Madka, who owns 4ha of land—often left fallow because there wasn’t enough water for irrigation—here used to make...