Marked by distrust and, on the government's part an element of coercion as well, the civil society-UPA exercise to jointly draft a Lokpal bill formally ended in failure on Tuesday with the two sides exchanging conflicting drafts. The government is unable to accept civil society's version of an anti-corruption authority with sweeping jurisdiction over the Prime Minister's Office, top judiciary and actions of MPs in Parliament along with merging entities like...

-The Telegraph   The Singur land was taken over by the state government tonight after a flurry of dramatic events, prompting the Tatas to make preparations to move the high court tomorrow morning. Sources said Tata Motors wrote to top state government officials tonight, requesting them not to alter the status quo without a court order. However, a government official said in Singur that the administration had taken possession of the land...

MiD-Day's Akela was arrested under the Official Secrets Act over exposé on poor storage there WhileMiD-Day journalist Tarakant Dwivedi alias Akela was arrested and jailed last month under the Official Secrets Act (OSA), 1923, for doing a story on the poor storage of sophisticated weaponry at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST), a Right to Information (RTI) query has revealed that the Railway Protection Force (RPF) armoury at the CST was not a...

-The Business Standard   Land acquisition for the Posco steel project at Gobindpur and Dhinkia villages may be postponed indefinitely due to stiff resistance from villagers. The district administration’s dilemma on whether or not to resume land acquisition at the trouble-torn villages is compounded by the recent beeline of political leaders, civil right activists and anti-land acquisition proponents to the project site. While Swami Agnivesh and a delegation of the state Congress visited...

A large group of BJP leaders expresses support to agitating villagers Even as the Orissa government was set to resume land acquisition for the controversial Posco steel project in Jagatsinghpur district on Monday, political support for the anti-Posco agitation further grew on Sunday with a large group of Bharatiya Janata Party leaders visiting Gobindpur and other villages in Jagatsinghpur to express their support for the agitating villagers. The agitators, opposing the project...