Anti-Posco agitators on Sunday burnt copies of the new rehabilitation package issued by the company and accused Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik of backtracking from his "promise" to visit the site for taking stock of the situation. Terming the package as meaningless, leaders of Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti (PPSS) and others agitators said the residents of three gram panchayat in Jagatsinghpur district would "never allow" the mega steel plant to come up...
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Bhopal case: Jairam 'sorry' govt smuggled Union Carbide waste by Suchandana Gupta
As late as 2008, about 23 years after the Bhopal gas tragedy, the state government was still involved in virtual subterfuge. Taking advantage of a curfew imposed in Indore, which was reeling under communal riots in July-August that year, the government smuggled out 40 tonnes of toxic waste from the Union Carbide factory to an incinerator 230 km away at a site in Pithampur. Apologising for the government's action, Union...
More »Dalit Manch lays siege to DAC, burns effigy
Hundreds of Dalits, under the banner of Punjab Dalit Chetna Manch, laid siege to the District Administrative Complex (DAC) and burnt the effigy of the district administration for its alleged anti-Dalit approach. Some Protesters tried self-immolation, while some youngsters climbed up the rooftop of the DAC threatening to jump, but heavy police force, led by SP (City) Sukhwant Singh Gill and DSP (City-II) Swarandeep Singh managed to persuade the Protesters...
More »Villagers for Posco
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...
More »The ugly side of land acquisition in India
"India lives in several centuries at the same time. Somehow we manage to progress and regress simultaneously." Arundhati Roy Controversies, protests and violence have marred land acquisition for projects in India. Protests against acquiring agricultural land, inappropriate compensation or environmental impact have been the main reasons for these protests. In most cases, the protests are by farmers who are hardly compensated after their fertile agricultural land is taken over in for...
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