Mamata Banerjee today told Congress leader Pranab Mukherjee over the phone that she wanted the amended land acquisition act to be sent to a standing committee, a move that will effectively delay its tabling till the Bengal elections are over next year. The Congress wants to table the bill in the winter session. “Given the sensitivity attached to land acquisition in Bengal, we don’t want to take any risk during the Assembly...

Telugu Desam Party president N Chandrababu Naidu today wondered why Congress president Sonia Gandhi and general secretary Rahul Gandhi were silent on the mining mafia's activities in Andhra Pradesh, even as they spoke about Vedanta and other projects. "Sonia Gandhi is now talking about the mining mafia in Karnataka, while Rahul says he will fight like a solider for tribals in Orissa. Why don't they do the same in Andhra Pradesh...

The state government has decided to return fertile land that had been notified for a special economic zone (SEZ) by Bharat Forge, close on the heels of Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s remark that land acquisition must be done in a manner that does not cause loss of large tracts of productive agricultural land. She has also called for a humane approach while acquiring land. "The decision to return 583 hectares of...

Nearly a million tribals have been given land rights under the forest rights act and they will be made stakeholders in development projects, says Tribal Affairs Minister Kantilal Bhuria, as this largely neglected section of Indian society comes to the fore of government policy. “We have received over 28 lakh (2.8 million) representations for land rights, of which 10 lakh claimants have been given land rights,” Bhuria, 60, who is himself...

The government’s ambitious plan of building around 18,637 km expressways by 2022 has hit a roadblock. Following the recent farmers protests against the Yamuna expressway project in Uttar Pradesh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s remark favouring justifiable compensation for land acquisition, the government has decided to go back to the drawing board on the creation of an expressway authority and the funding pattern of the projects. The ministry of road...