Nandkumar Naitam is relieved after a month of “torturous” anxiety. “I thought it over again and again,” the 20-year-old tribal youth says. “I thought that if I couldn’t get a rifle, I’d pick up my traditional weapon, the bow-and-arrow.” It was a desperation that Nandu, as he is fondly called, shared with his 5,000-odd fellow special police officers (SPOs), who till a month ago formed the Chhattisgarh government’s frontline against the Maoists...

-Express News Service   The Supreme Court on Wednesday quashed the invocation of emergency clause by the Mayawati government to acquire private land for the construction of a district jail without hearing objections raised by the aggrieved land owners. “The series of events shows lethargy and lackadaisical attitude of the state government,” a bench of Justices G S Singhvi and H L Dattu observed against the manner in which the state government...

Days after it was made public, the new land acquisition bill is facing resistance. While farmer’s unions and civil society groups want more — permanent rights over land,  even in case of a take over, prior consent of people even for public projects, state agencies and developers are unhappy over the restrictive nature of the bill. "As farmers, we would not like to part with our land but if required in larger...

-Live Mint   Finally, a serious roadblock in the country’s march to industrialization may be removed soon. The Union ministry of rural development has unveiled a draft National Land Acquisition and Rehabilitation and Resettlement (LARR) Bill. Once a law, LARR could potentially end arbitrary land acquisitions under the Land Acquisition Act of 1894. Any well-functioning market gives clear signals and prices are market-driven. The 1894 law with its ill-defined “public purpose” clause...

Thousands of people here today attended the last rites of the farmer who was allegedly killed in the police lathi charge at Kot Dunna village last evening. The farmers were protesting against the acquisition of their land for a thermal plant at Gobindpura in Mansa. The district administration has agreed to give Rs 5 lakh as compensation to the family of the deceased farmer, besides recommending a job for one member...