NEW DELHI: The Congress on Monday said that it would launch an agitation in Uttar Pradesh to expose exploitation of farmers whose land had been acquired for various projects, including numerous housing schemes, at throwa-way rates. Law and order had deteriorated and Dalits and women we're suffering, PCC president Rita Bahuguna said, while releasing a list of 21 Ministers who, she alleged, had a "criminal background."

The state BJP Bhoo Parirakshana Samiti convenor, Dr S. Malla Reddy, said that farmers were meted out injustice in land acquisition for establishment of Special Economic Zones (SEZs) and urged the state government to take steps to help them.

Documents on SEZs (special economic zones) reveal that altogether 19 companies had applied to the Goa government for setting up SEZs in the State. Of these, the Pratapsing Rane-headed coalition government had made recommendation to Board of Approvals, Ministry of Commerce, Government of India, in 15 cases. These included two government SEZs promoted by Dayanand Narvekar-headed Information Technology (InfoTech) Corporation, namely IT Habitat in Dona Paula and IT Park in Socorro.

Two pieces of legislation, which will impact millions of people displaced or threatened with displacement in the name of development, will soon come up for discussion in the monsoon session of

The Steering Committee of the Civil Aviation Ministry, which considered the proposals of the Karnataka government to set up greenfield airports at Gulbarga, Bijapur, Hassan and Shimoga, on Friday granted "in principle' approval for the projects. The approval is subject to the condition that the Standard Operating Procedure will be formalised by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), Airports Authority of India (AAI) and Defence Ministry on air space management of the airports at Gulbarga and Bijapur in view of the defence operations in Pune and Bidar.

At long last, we have direct action from the government on the Special Economic Zones (SEZs) that neither the Goan people nor the Goa government want, but the Union Commerce Ministry seems to want to impose on the people of Goa. By cancelling in one stroke the land given to the SEZs for gross irregularities in its allotment, Chief Minister Digambar Kamat has gladdened the heart of every Goan.

SEZ tale in Goa has been of favouritism, irregularities, procedural impropriety, and totally anti-Goa. Since it was first discussed in December 2004 during the BJP regime, SEZ story took a monsterous form in 2006. Pratapsing Rane was the chief minister and Luizinho Faleiro the Industries Minister.

Pradeep Gooptu & S Kalyana Ramananthan / Singur/ Chennai June Even as Tata Motors is racing against time to get its new Singur plant near Kolkata ready for commercial roll-out of the Nano by October 2008, the company may be needing an out-of-the box solution to overcome some delays in the integrated plant and component park structure proposed for the vehicle. Tata Motors plants in Pune and the new one in Pantnagar (Uttarakhand) might be marked as standby options should the Singur facility not be ready by October.

Speeding up the land acquisition process for major infrastructure works in the district will be a focus area for the newly appointed Pune district collector Chandrakant Dalvi who took over from former district collector Prabhakar Deshmukh on Monday. With nearly 2,000 cases pending with 17 land acquisition officers, Dalvi plans to speed up the "disposal of the cases' in the district. "I have already told my land acquisition officers to brief me about the cases and my priority would be to speed it up,' he told the media on his first day in office.

Goa's Movement Against SEZs has expressed shock over the statement made by the Secretary of the Union Ministry of Commerce and Industry and Board of Approval for SEZs, Mr G K Pillai, who has accused the Government of Goa of not taking any steps for the last six months, to close down the SEZs and that the Goa Government has even asked for this year's lease rent of land from some developers. In a letter written to the CM today, the convenor of GMAS Matanhy Saldanha suspected that some games are being played and that the government is not displaying its seriousness on the matter.

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