The Orissa government today confirmed that at least 45 companies had been allowed to draw water from rivers, seeking to balance the demand for industry and that of farmers who fear their source of irrigation might dry up. The state government has so far signed memoranda of understanding with 86 companies, of which 45 have been given the right to draw water. Many of the companies deal in power generation, for...

Four days after anti-POSCO agitators agreed to Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s proposal, the socio-economic survey that would form the ground of the compensation package for the oustees of POSCO steel project started at the twin villages of Dhinkia and Gobindpur. Eight teams entered Gobindpur gram panchayat area in Jagatsinghpur district and started the survey for the Rs 52,000-crore project without any police protection. On June 13, the anti-POSCO body, POSCO...

Acknowledging the expertise of Punjabi farmers in making the state the “food bowl of the country”, Ethiopia now wants them to replicate this success in their country. Only 43 per cent of the total land mass of the country was currently under cultivation and the African country has invited farmers to lease huge tracts of arable land in various parts of the country and turn them into green lush fields....

While the Jagatsinghpur district administration is preparing to take up survey in Govindpur village, considered a bastion of anti-POSCO plant agitation, around 50 people of the same village today extended their support to the $12 billion project. “Some villagers of Govindpur met me, expressed their support to the POSCO project and requested me in writing to start survey in the village,” Jagatsinghpur district collector Narayan Chandra Jena told The Telegraph. They claimed...

At least two persons were injured when the police resorted to lathi charge villagers opposing the establishment of a mega steel plant by POSCO India Private Limited in Orissa's Jagatsinghpur district on Wednesday. The police also arrested two persons on the charges of obstructing government officials from discharging their duties. Wait till talks end The incident took place when hundreds of residents of Nuagaon village staged a dharna on the main road to...