-The Deccan Herald "Law is misused for business interests." There is reason for serious concern over the aggressive acquisition of farm land by the Karnataka government on behalf of corporates. It has notified 3,382 acres in Halligudi in Gadag district where Korean steel giant Posco proposes to set up a 6 million tonne per annum integrated steel plant and a 450-mw captive power plant. Farmers in the area, whose lands have been...

When Sujatha’s husband learned that she had conceived just five months after they got married, he became agitated over what he called her "ill-timed pregnancy". To worsen her husband’s anxiety, a test to determine the sex of the foetus showed she was carrying a girl. Sujatha, a public school teacher, and her husband, a civil engineer – who asked that their full names be withheld – are from well-off and educated...

In contrast to the 1990s, when age-old matters of identity drove electoral politics, it appears that development-related issues such as land acquisition and law and order will play a critical role in the contentious campaign for the UP elections due next year. While this can be attributed to the BSP’s “sarvajan” agenda, it also signals the impact of the market economy and the need to attract private investment, which has...

What farmers get are lathis and litigation, observes Justice Ganguly The Supreme Court on Tuesday expressed concern over misuse of the Land Acquisition Act, a colonial law, by all States to acquire land from farmers for development in the guise of a ‘public purpose'. A Bench of Justices G.S. Singhvi and A.K. Ganguly said that in the name of globalisation and land development the States had marginalised farmers by paying a pittance...

Millions of Indians use Google and its myriad web services every day. We do not pay for them, nor have we elected the people who run Google. Google does not have to be accountable to us. In the ‘terms of services’ that we click ‘agree’ on, they could say anything because we do not read it anyway. Yet, Google convened a conference in Budapest in September 2010 to tell internet...