Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti, which is spearheading a campaign against the defunct Land Development Bank's forcible recovery drive from farmers in distressed western Vidarbha, has disputed the government claim that only big and habitually defaulting farmers are being targeted. Buttressing their charge that LDB was charging usurious rates, VJAS has highlighted the case of Purshottam Ingle of village Tigoan in Wardha, who borrowed Rs 2,90,000 in 2001 from LDB by...

A committee of the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MOEF) on Saturday found that the green signal for land acquisition for the proposed Posco-India steel plant project in Orissa's Jagatsinghpur district was given, ignoring implementation of the Forest Rights Act, 2006. The three-member committee that visited villages facing displacement observed that forest land could not be diverted for other purposes without settlement of rights under the FRA. It asked villagers to...

The four-member panel, which holds the fate of Vedanta's bauxite mining project in the Niyamgiri Hills of Orissa, has been given an expanded mandate. The committee has now been given the job of investigating the “likely physical and economic displacement due to the project, including the resource displacement of forest users and the rehabilitation plan.” Open-ended course It has also been given an open-ended mandate, with permission to “inquire into or investigate any...

Buddhi Devi was 14 when she was betrothed. In India, that is not unusual: many marry young. Her intended was a boy from her village who was two years younger — that, too, was not strange. But she was also supposed to marry her future husband’s younger brother, once he was old enough. Now 70 and a widow who is still married— one of her husbands is dead — Ms. Devi...

Vedanta’s plans to source bauxite from Niyamgiri hills in Kalahandi district of Orissa appear to have run into trouble with the Attorney General opining that the ministry of environment has the powers to stop diversion of forest land till rights of tribals under the Forest Rights Act are settled. After the environment ministry kept on hold clearance for the Vedanta project, questions were raised on the mandate of the department...