-Reuters   Clad in white home-spun garments and living in a spartan room of his village's Hindu temple, Anna Hazare is an unlikely thorn in the side of the government hundreds of miles away in New Delhi. And yet for millions of Indians, he is a 21st-century Mahatma Gandhi, inspiring a rare wave of protests against the spiralling corruption that has tarnished the up-and-coming image of Asia's third-largest economy. Like Gandhi, who led India's...

The Orissa government suspends the land acquisition for the Posco project in the face of stiff opposition from the people. SIX years ago, when the South Korean steel giant Posco arrived in Orissa with the biggest ever foreign direct investment that had come the country's way, it was expected to help rid the economically backward State of its ‘poor' tag and bring prosperity. Posco had won the $12 billion deal at...

When all failed, a police lathicharge did the trick. Farmers of Akaltara village were protesting against land acquisition for a month, but only after the police beat them up and arrested 78 men on a cold January evening, that things heated up. Opposition leaders rushed to the site and the government was forced to react. From Rs 8 lakh, compensation rates were hiked to Rs 17 lakh per acre. The...

-The Business Standard   Land acquisition for the Posco steel project at Gobindpur and Dhinkia villages may be postponed indefinitely due to stiff resistance from villagers. The district administration’s dilemma on whether or not to resume land acquisition at the trouble-torn villages is compounded by the recent beeline of political leaders, civil right activists and anti-land acquisition proponents to the project site. While Swami Agnivesh and a delegation of the state Congress visited...

-The Business Standard   The government’s cup of woes with regard to the much-hyped Posco project seem to be brimming over. Even as the anti-Posco activists have forced the Jagatsinghpur district administration to stop land acquisition for the project at Gobindpur and Dhinkia, the project supporters, who had assisted the officials in an almost trouble-free land acquisition in Gadakujang and Nuagaon panchayats, are now peeved with the administration for non-fulfilment of...