tung by farmers’ protest over land acquisition for the ongoing Yamuna Expressway project in western Uttar Pradesh, the state government today announced a new policy for land acquisition and rehabilitation of land owners. The policy promises sops, including equity share in the development projects, for land owners. Land acquisition hurdles have put brakes on several ambitious projects of the state government, including the Yamuna Expressway, international airport in Kushinagar district and Lucknow...

Demanding adequate compensation to the family of a debt-ridden farmer who allegedly committed suicide, irate farmers in Orissa''s Kendrapara district today detained a senior government officer for three hours, police said. The incident took place at Andara village when Pattamundai tehsildar Pabitra Mohan Pradhan went there to investigate the alleged debt-induced suicidal death, they said. Locals squatted on the road leading to the village and put the tehsildar under detention for nearly...

The State Government has introduced a string of changes to the land acquisition process for industrial purposes, giving farmers the option to either take a stake in the industrialisation process or settle for fair compensation. All land being acquired across the State by the Karnataka Industrial Areas Development Board will be eligible for compensation at a rate higher than the market value and not the guidance value fixed by the revenue...

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's recent assurance that the Land Acquisition Act of 1894 would be amended is welcome though delayed. There are many compelling reasons why this inept and outdated Act should be changed and the farmers' protest over disruptive acquisition in Uttar Pradesh is only one of them. The 1894 Act, last amended in 1984, has not helped balance the land needs of rapid economic growth and the grievances...

Farmers would be given adequate compensation for their lands acquired for setting up a nuclear power plant in Fatehabad district of Haryana, parliament member Ashok Tanwar Monday assured a group of protesting farmers. The farmers were holding a sit-in outside the mini secretariat at Fatehabad town, over 300 km from here, to protest acquisition of their lands in Gorakhpur-Kumharia village. Tanwar, MP from Sirsa, told the farmers that all their fears on...