Allahabad High Court today partly quashed the acquisition of 2,500 acres for Anil Ambani’s jinxed Dadri power project, rekindling memories of the Singur dispute. A high court division bench of Justices Ashok Bhushan and Sudhir Agarwal quashed the land purchase by the Uttar Pradesh government in 2004 under emergency provisions of the Land Acquisition Act of 1894. The court noted that the state government had failed to record the objections...

The UPA government has come under severe criticism for trying to hurriedly pass the Land Acquisition (amendment) and the Resettlement & Rehabilitation Bill during the ongoing Parliamentary session. Both the bills have been dubbed as anti-poor as their provisions are seen to promote forced dispossession of farmers’ land as well as large scale displacement of rural people. The haste with which the two Bills are being promoted could be assessed...

Around a third of India Inc’s investment plans are in states affected by Naxalism. Anyone who’s been reading Mahesh Vyas regularly, including his piece on today’s OpEd page, knows India Inc’s investment juggernaut has rolled on relatively unchecked, despite the global crisis, for the past five years. The investments on hand, the CMIE (Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy) chief’s calculations show, have the potential of increasing India’s GDP by 50 per...

The article presents the political and economic impacts of various kinds of natural and man-made disasters and associated displacement of populations, and argues for a wider and more inclusive definition of disasters in the interest of human rights, social justice and equity for the victims of disasters. Legislation, Disasters and People Numerous disasters at national and international levels have caused governments to recognise the need for rapid and effective response to provide...

KEY TRENDS • As per the information collected by the Ministry of Tribal Affairs (MoTA) upto 31 October, 2017, 41,89,827 claims (40,50,131 individual and 1,39,696 community claims) have been filed and 18,24,271 titles (17,59,955 individual and 64,316 community claims) have been distributed. A total of 36,51,414 (87.15 percent) claims have been disposed off @@ • In the last 10 years, only 3 percent of the minimum potential of CFR rights could be...