By not resolving the definition of ‘public purpose,' the Land Acquisition Bill keeps the door open for misuse It has taken more than 110 years for the government to draft a new Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill. But despite mounting evidence of widespread misuse of government authority in taking over farm land and the increasing protests against the legal ambiguity that abets such exploitative practices, the revised legislation remains dubiously...

-The Times of India JAIPUR: The state cabinet on Wednesday approved allotment of nearly 400 hectares land near Sariska to the forest department in return for the land acquired in Jaipur for the Rajiv Gandhi Awas Yojana meant to rehabilitate slum dwellers. Decisions related to salaries and perks of chairperson and members of the state human rights commission, lawyers' welfare, increase in study leave for doctors and enhancing the policemen's allowances were...

Jatav residents of Ramgarh in U.P. resist attempts by members of a powerful community to grab their land by violent means. IN what could be considered one of the worst incidents of vendetta against Dalits in the National Capital Region (NCR), members of the Dalit Jatav community were beaten up brutally by some members of the dominant Gujjar community in Ramgarh village in the Greater Noida area of Uttar Pradesh...

The exploitation of migrant construction workers has grown alongside the expansion of the industry. It's time the government got serious about upholding the law. A recent report in The Hindu on the violation of labour laws at a massive construction site belonging to the Army Welfare Housing Organisation in Bangalore raises yet again the repeated neglect of regulations relating to the employment and welfare of workers by construction companies in India. For...

Nagri (Ranchi), April 25: A piece of land is valued either Rs 1.55 lakh or Rs 340.5 crore. Take your pick. If you recover from this shock, you can proceed to figure out who should get in part or full 227.71 acres at Nagri, 15km from Ranchi. Construction of IIM-Ranchi and National University for Study and Research in Law (NUSRL) campuses has halted after villagers refused to budge from the acres,...