Odisha village gets pattas after nearly half a century. Land reform programmes get jumpstart They say home is where the heart is, but that’s not always true. Ask Arakhita Pradhan, resident of Chilipoi village in Odisha’s Ganjam district. On a cold evening some 44 years ago, the authorities forcefully shifted him and his neighbours to a place where no civic amenities existed. Reason: the state had built an irrigation dam that...

Migration is fuelling India's HIV epidemic. National AIDS Control Organisation's latest figures show that besides high risk populations like sex workers, the highest burden of HIV is among migrants - 3.6%, which is 10 times the HIV prevalence among the general population.  With migration rates increasing, the prevalence will only get worse. According to the 2001 census, 30.1% of the population was considered to have migrated (314 million) - a considerable...

-PTI The conflict between men and elephants came to the fore once again in Orissa's Ganjam district when wild tuskers trampled to death a 57-year-old man and injured a girl at a village. Dandasi Muduli (57) died on the spot when he was attacked by a herd of wild elephants outside village Biripur yesterday while on way to a pond for a bath. Before the incident, the tuskers had attacked a girl who...

-The Times of India   Armed tribals on Wednesday blocked the Bhanjanagar-Dasaplla road at Gayaganda in Ganjam district in protest against the arrest of 29 tribals from Ambajahari within Tarsingi forest range. Forest personnel raided the reserve forest and arrested these people for constructing their house by encroaching upon forest land and chopping trees, divisional forest officer, Ghumusar (South) B B Behera said. Behera said the encroachers tried to attack the forest personnel...

Environmentalists may be against the state government’s proposal to set up new ports along the coast, but experts feel that the state needs these facilities badly to make the most of the cargo boom expected in the next 10 years. They have also extended support to chief minister Naveen Patnaik’s campaign against the Centre’s bid to restrict the powers of coastal states and union territories with regard to determining the jurisdiction...