-Orissa Diary   The Odisha High Court on Tuesday reserved judgment on a petition seeking quashing of the land acquisition proceedings undertaken for the Posco steel plant proposed to be set up at Paradip in Jagatsinghpur district. The two-judge bench of Chief Justice V Gopala Gowda and Justice B N Mohapatra reserved judgment after hearing arguments from all sides on the land acquisition proceedings. The two-judge bench had reserved judgment on it on July...

Paradip, Aug. 6: Reports of a tidal surge into the denuded forest pockets in the proposed Posco project area since Thursday night have caused concern among the local residents. However, officials have advised the villagers not to panic. “We have received reports of tidal waves’ ingress in some pockets of denuded forest areas. But there was no threat to the villages,” said Kujang tehsildar Vasudev Pradhan. “The forest used to check the...

Bellary is only the tip of the rotting earthmound. Can a new proposed legislation clear the air? Two years ago, when the ministry of mines decided to use satellite imaging to survey projects, it unearthed several “unusual activities” across the country. “The amount of mining done and material being exported didn’t match in areas where certain companies had been given licences,” recounts a former senior bureaucrat with the mines ministry....

Amid controversy over the acquisition of land in a Gurgaon village for the Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust, the Haryana government has been dragged to the Supreme Court for acquiring over 2,700 acre of fertile land in Rohtak district, for developing a township. While the state government is defending the acquisition of over 850 acres, which also covers land for the Trust at Ullahawas village in the Punjab and Haryana high...

Vicky Nanjappa goes through Karnataka Lokayukta Justice Santosh Hegde's explosive report on illegal mining in the state and reveals damning figures of corruption. A jaw-dropping Rs 12,228 crore worth of iron ore was illegally exported in a a span of four years (2006-2010), says Karnataka Lokayukta Justice Santhosh Hegde in his report released a couple of days back which led to Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa's exit. According to the report, which...