-The Times of India Congress leadership has vetoed the dilution of land acquisition bill, saying that 80% landowners have to agree to let the government acquire their land for private projects. The bottomline has been laid down by UPA chief Sonia Gandhi barely two days after a ministerial panel headed by Sharad Pawar finalized the draft bill, which says that consent of 67% landowners would suffice for government to acquire land. The leadership...

-The Times of India Top Congress leader and defence minister A K Antony said government should not acquire land for private entities since it is a big trigger for agitations, reverting the debate over land acquisition bill to the strict norms that were sought to be diluted on the pretext of industrialization.  Antony told the Sharad Pawar-led group of ministers debating the proposed bill that land had become a scarce resource and...

-The Hindu Efforts of Jairam and Jyotiraditya to talk them out of it fail Dhanalakshmi, a 22-year-old from the Paliyar hill tribe of Tamil Nadu, is a long way from home. At 7 a.m. on Wednesday, she will join about 60,000 other landless poor, Adivasis and Dalits who have streamed into Gwalior from all parts of the country for a padayatra to the national capital, to present the demand that each of...

-The Hindustan Times The 16-day-old Jal Satyagraha, organized by farmers displaced by Omkareshwar Dam ended on Monday. The state government accepted all the demands of the agitationists. The displaced farmers were demanding reduction of water level in the dam, land for land and monetary compensation. "We have agreed to bring down the water level of dam to 189 metres and to compensate the farmers' land. It will, however, affect irrigation in...

-The Business Standard About 15 kms from the idyllic hilly town of Semiliguda in South Odisha’s Koraput district, the stage is set for an encore of the Niyamgiri-type agitation, as the tribals gather at the foothills of Mali Parbat to protest against bauxite mining by Hindalco Industries Ltd in the area. Sharing the concerns of the Dongria Kondh tribe at Niyamgiri, whose protests had put a halt to Vedanta’s bauxite mining plan...