-The Guardian  The counter conference is designed to foster alternative ideas and provide an outlet for discontent They come with speeches, placards, power point presentations and drums. Some with body paint and bows and arrows. Others with suits and business plans. Almost all driven by a desire for radical change. "Come re-invent the world" is the call to the People's summit, which has opened in Rio de Janeiro to counter what many participants...

-The Telegraph The government today admitted that almost 95 per cent of the job to repair Aila-ravaged embankments in the Sunderbans was unfinished because of land-related problems, a lapse that will leave seven lakh families living in South and North 24-Parganas vulnerable to floods during the monsoon. The government was supposed to build 263km of concrete embankments by March this year but managed only 14km, primarily because of problems over land acquisition,...

-The Indian Express Jairam Ramesh’s criticism of NREGA highlights that a rights-based approach to poverty reduction cannot work without improving implementation The clamour for the right to social pensions is another attempt to deal with the Indian state’s inability to provide adequate social protection to its poorest citizens through targeted programmes. India’s vulnerable continue to be excluded from social safety nets. The multi-layered problems with social welfare schemes can be summarised in...

Scheme meant for the tribals has been hijacked by mining firms, claim activists The construction of 24 fortified police bases in the midst of Saranda, an 800-sq. km. patch of forested hills veined with a quarter of India's iron ore reserves, has sparked concerns among political activists who believe that a development plan intended for tribals in Jharkhand has been hijacked by mining corporations. In October last year, Union Minister for Rural...

Farmers, whose land was acquired at a meagre Rs. 4 per square yard in South West Delhi way back in 1955 in the name of undertaking planned development, have now seized upon the opportunity raised by the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India — on the loss caused to the exchequer by leasing away of some of this very land by Indira Gandhi International Airport concessionaire Delhi...