-The Times of India   Bapi Sarkhel, in the eye of a storm since the December 14 violence near Poscoproject site in Jagatsinghpur, said on Thursday certain politicians seeking his arrest had benefited from him in the past, but turned against him as they saw him as a threat. Police has booked him on charges of fomenting trouble in the proposed Posco Steel plant site and attacking anti-land acquisition villagers in the...

Last week's clash near Posco's project site in Odisha is brewing trouble for the South Korean Steelmaker and the state government, with legislators demanding a probe into why the main accused in the clash has not been arrested. State legislators on Monday demanded the immediate arrest of Bapi Sarkhel, a Paradip-based contractor alleged to have masterminded Wednesday's clash, which left one dead and 25 injured. "When the police arrested local...

Chances of a single answer to two opposing questions on the RTI Act means there is something to it which the rule-books don’t tell you about—but you can bowl googlies to them, too, when the system expects you to hold a straight bat to their bouncers Here is a single answer to two diametrically opposite questions—“Yes, you can file an application under the Right to Information Act of India 2005 (RTI...

A 30-year-old labourer was killed and more than 20 were injured on Wednesday when villagers protesting the Posco Steel project clashed with a group of labourers hired by a contractor near the Posco project area of Jagatsinghpur district. The clash occurred near Bosecalis Point at 1.30 pm when anti-Posco villagers came face-to-face with 60-70 labourers of Paradip Paribahan, a private firm that is constructing a 12-km coastal road to link Paradip...

Dumps trickle into the rivers and occasionally collapse, flooding homes and fields with muddy water The reddish hills dot large tracts of the Goan landscape—mounds of waste soil and other debris that have been left behind after iron ore was dug out from some 95 mines. Accumulating since the 1960s, the dumps, as they are known, are estimated at 750 million tonnes (mt) and consist of top soil, mud and iron...