On the first anniversary of the farmer-police clash that had claimed four lives last year, farmers of Tappal in Aligarh — who gathered in Jikarpur village on Sunday to observe ‘martyrs’ day’ — demanded that the government honour its commitments, including return of land to farmers who had refused to sell it, within 20 days. They demanded the construction of a memorial near the bridge where the firing took place on...

-The Times of India   KENDRAPADA: Right to Information campaigner and Magsaysay award winner Aruna Roy has asked the state government to stop construction and tree felling works for the proposed steel plant of Posco in the seaside gram panchayats of Dhinkia, Nuagaon and Gadakujang in Jagatsinghpur district and have a public debate on the issue. Roy visited the villages in the proposed steel plant site on Sunday in support of the...

Draft Bill on land acquisition pegs compensation on market value but how government agencies will reach this value remains a concern In response to farmers’ agitation in the last few years over faulty land acquisition and poor compensation—the Tata-Singur fiasco in West Bengal, Posco in Orissa or the recent farmers’ agitation in Noida—the ministry of rural development is planning to replace the archaic Land Acquisition Bill, 1894. It has come up...

IF YOU walked down the streets of Jantar Mantar in New Delhi between 3-5 August, you would see what TV cameras aren’t putting out on primetime news. Thousands of farmers from Jhabua in Madhya Pradesh to Rohtak in Haryana. On protest. Against the systematic grabbing of their land by various state governments across the political spectrum. On one side of the road, on large green carpets, are about 3,000 farmers,...

In a bid to settle the land acquisition row, Noida Authority on Friday issued a notice to change land use in Noida. The Authority has identified two pieces of land which will be allotted to farmers as developed land equalling 5 per cent of the total acquired and a b a d iland. The Authority will first allot land to farmers of those villages where housing projects are currently under way. TOI...