-The Telegraph West Bengal Power Development Corporation Limited to file separate affidavits stating particulars of the proposed coal mine project in Birbhum district Calcutta: Calcutta High Court on Tuesday asked both the state government and the West Bengal Power Development Corporation Limited (WBPDCL) to file separate affidavits in two weeks stating details of the proposed Deocha-Pachami-Dewanganj-Harinsingha (DPDH) coal mine project in Birbhum district. A division bench of Chief Justice Prakash Srivastava and Justice...

-The Hindu A more progressive Central law on land acquisition is now in place, but several States have already either amended the new law or enacted legislation of their own. On August 31, the Supreme Court in Kedar Nath Yadav v. State of West Bengal delivered one of the most momentous decisions of the year. It invalidated the expropriation of land in Singur by the erstwhile Left Front government in Bengal, and...

-Economic and Political Weekly After coming to power in 2014, the National Democratic Alliance government took several measures to dilute the pro-poor provisions of the Land Acquisition Act of 2013. Though it has backed down, several questions remain over the way the Modi government has dealt with the issue of land acquisition. Santosh Verma (santosh.econ@gmail.com) is at the Council for Social Development, New Delhi. Land acquisition—by private corporations or the state—has raised vital...

-Economic and Political Weekly While insufficient sanitation facilities often get represented in statistics and are reported in the literature on urban infrastructure planning and contested urban spaces, what is often left out is the everyday practice and experience of going to dysfunctional toilets, particularly by women. By analysing the practices and problems associated with toilet use from a phenomenological perspective, this article aims to situate the issue in the everyday lives...

-The Indian Express   How Chhattisgarh became a sanctuary, and then a laboratory, for Naxals Some time ago, Chhattisgarh hit the headlines because of a Maoist attack on state Congress leaders, in which V.C. Shukla and Mahendra Karma died. Since then, the Congress has accused the BJP government of a conspiracy, and some BJP leaders have accused former chief minister Ajit Jogi of being part of a conspiracy himself. Politicising this tragic episode...