-Frontline Interview with Jairam Ramesh, Union Minister for Rural Development. THE passage of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill, 2013, is being perceived as a major achievement by the United Progressive Alliance government. The Bill that has replaced the colonial Land Acquisition Act, 1894, went through several changes in order to arrive at a middle path, a term coined by Union Minister for...

-The Hindu ‘We had to walk 40 to 50 km., in flood, to collect foodgrains' Raipur: While the Chhattisgarh government is touting its food policy as the most successful model of production and distribution of food grains in the country, the people of Abujhmarh - a vast swath of forestland in south-west Chhattisgarh - spent another monsoon without adequate food. Several villagers told The Hindu that the fair price shops, run by Gram...

One landmark law, the Right to Information Act, has helped over a thousand adivasis in north Maharashtra in getting closer to their rights under another landmark law – the forest rights Act. The latter was legislated in 2006 giving forest dwelling and other adivasi communities individual and community rights to lands they had traditionally cultivated and occupied. But communities in rural India have faced an uphill battle in getting the...

-The Business Standard The process prescribed in the law is so cumbersome and time consuming that neither industry nor landowner will benefit Fast economic growth in the last two decades has increased demand for land from many sources, such as infrastructure, industry, mining, and urbanisation, including real estate. Even when these activities are funded privately and are driven by profit motive, they serve a social purpose since employment generation per unit of...

-The Hindu "It is time now for Vedanta to gracefully respect public sentiment and pack off its establishment" JARAPA (ODISHA): Efforts of Vedanta Aluminium Limited (VAL), belonging to London-listed Vedanta Resources Plc, to mine bauxite ore in Niyamgiri hills in Odisha received a severe blow on Monday with the 12th palli (gram) sabha also voting against mining there. This is the first time an environmental referendum is conducted on a directive by the...