Food gatherer and rope maker tribals in Jharkhand become cultivators Members of two primitive tribes in East Singhbhum district, Jharkhand, are trying to retain their forestland in a unique manner. The sabars and birhors, food gatherers and rope makers, have taken to cultivation. They have cleared tracts of forestland on which they have lived for generations, to grow mango, guava,

Mumbai, August 29 Government says issue be referred to Central Empowerment Committee
The Supreme Court on Friday adjourned the hearing on the forest land case for six weeks. The homes of nearly 5 lakh citizens of suburban Mumbai were recently declared

JAIPUR: Not to be left behind in what could now be termed the "Nano car race' among the States, Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje has offered land and all "necessary logistic support' to the Tata group to wheel in the small car project to this desert State after the company's threat to pull out of Singur in West Bengal.

Rajasthan is the fourth State to invite the Tatas for setting up the car unit after Maharashtra, Punjab and Orissa.

V Narayana Murthi | ENS
Vellore

THE Vellore Forest Division has removed encroachment by farmers from around 450 acres of forest land from border villages in Gudiyattam and Odugathur ranges in the past three months, thanks to the support given by the Village Forest Councils and local bodies.
Except in Madigam village in Odugathur range, where the encroachers had resisted the eviction move, but later conceded, the oper ation, according to the Divional Forest Officer (DFO) T V Manjunatha, was smooth and productive.

Saubhadra Chatterji & Nistula Hebbar / New Delhi August 26, 2008, 0:54 IST

It was proposed as a panacea for all land acquisition disputes and agitations accompanying industrial development in India.

The amended Land Acquisition Act, 1894, pending before a parliamentary committee, will in all likelihood see the light of day whenever the monsoon session of Parliament is called.

At a meeting of the standing committee on rural development today, it was decided that the last hurdle, the report on the Bill, would be finalised by September 3-5.

LANDING IN TROUBLE
Saubhadra Chatterji / Semrota (uttar Pradesh) August 22, 2008, 1:01 IST

Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and Bhupinder Singh Hooda should take heart. They are not alone in facing political storms over their governments' land acquisition efforts.

Congress' star general secretary, Rahul Gandhi, too, got the rough edge of his constituency's tongue when, during a free-wheeling interaction in Amethi, his voters berated him for eyeing their land, even if for development.

V.K. Ramachandran

New data show that, even over the last three years, the extent of land acquired by the State government for industrial and infrastructural purposes was a fraction of the agricultural land distributed under land reform.

The primary point of distinction between Left-led and all other State governments in India is that, on coming to power, every Left-led government has confronted the agrarian question directly. Land reform has been integral to the policy of the Left in government from the outset.