An uneasy calm prevailed in the troubled Nuagaon panchayat in the proposed Posco project site today as the district administration, different village forest committees and irate villagers reassessed the situation after yesterday’s police action during the felling of trees in the area. The police had resorted to lathicharge yesterday on the members of Sanghaipai Mathsahi village forest committee and land losers at Polang while they were opposing the cutting down of...

Tension prevailed in the villages where the Naveen Patnaik government is striving to acquire land for the proposed steel plant project of Posco. In Orissa's Jagatsinghpur district villagers protesting land acquisition clashed with police. Eight persons, including six women, were injured when police resorted to lathi charge to disperse villagers who came out of their homes to protest tree cutting by the men engaged by the district administration to acquire land near...

-The Hindu Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda on Tuesday urged representatives of Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) to ensure best use of the funds allocated for the rural areas so that these areas could come up at par with urban areas. Mr. Hooda was addressing the sarpanches and other PRIs representatives who had converged at his residence here to thank him for devolution of powers to the panchayats. He said that his...

In government schools in the villages, teachers rarely turn up. They collect their monthly salaries and pay a part of it to Basic Shiksha Adhikari for marking false attendance. Medicines are diverted to the black market before they reach government hospitals. Poor people are turned away when they go to hospitals. There is endless corruption in the work done by various panchayats. Rations meant for people living in extreme poverty...

-The Business Standard   Maoists threat to the leaders of United Action Committee, a pro Posco outfit, and elected representatives of Nuagaon and Gadakujang panchayats for extending support to the Posco project has spread panic among the pro Posco activists and villagers. Maoists have sent their threat letter to UAC members, panchayat samiti member of Nuagaon and sarpanch of Gadakujang by post urging them to withdraw their support from the Posco steel...