A three-member of team of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights led by Dr Yogesh Dubuey on Monday visited the proposed Posco steel plant site near Paradip and made an on-the-spot investigation into the alleged use of children by Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti (PPSS), an anti-displacement forum in the protest blockade for more than three weeks. The team also visited Badagabapur transit camp and interacted with members of...

-The Business Standard   A major blow was delivered to the National Advisory Council’s capacity to intervene in decisionmaking by the government with the Ministry of Rural development sticking to the formulation that if a private company wants to set up industry, it must buy 70 per cent of the land itself. All that the state government will do is buy for the investor, 30 per cent of the land, that...

-The Business Standard   Political rhetoric dominated the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci) annual executive committee meet today, even as two key faces of Mamata Banerjee’s administration reiterated the government’s stance of not acquiring land for industry. “Under no circumstances will the government acquire land for the industry,” Partha Chatterjee, West Bengal’s commerce and industries minister told the industry body. Also present at the event was state’s finance...

Boommi Gowda used to fear the night. Her vision fogged by glaucoma, she could not see by just the dim glow of a kerosene lamp, so she avoided going outside where king cobras slithered freely and tigers carried off neighborhood dogs. But things have changed at Gowda's home in the remote southern village of Nada. A solar-powered lamp pours white light across the front of the mud-walled hut she shares with...

The Union rural development ministry has retained in the draft of an amendment a partial government role in land acquisition for private investors, vetoing the diametrically conflicting views of Mamata Banerjee and a panel headed by Sonia Gandhi. The draft finalised by the ministry to amend the land acquisition act has stuck to the 70-30 formula under which the private investor is expected to buy at least 70 per cent of...