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The land-losers who had sacrificed their cultivation quarters to help installation of DVC's Mejia Thermal Power Station in Bankura blocked the coal consignments and entrance of the power utility causing severe inconvenience to its expansion work for 12 hours today. They demanded absorption against land acquisition. The stir was withdrawn only after the Bankura district administration assured one to one conciliation meeting on 27 May.

Senior BJP leader and former Union minister Ravishankar Prasad on Tuesday said that a massive scandal appears to be brewing in the reckless approval of special economic zones (SEZs). Mr Prasad said SEZs were giving realtors a chance to grab prime land. The SEZs are degenerating into land grab, he said.

The empowered group of ministers (eGoM) meeting scheduled to be held on Tuesday to discuss outstanding issues concerning special economic zones (SEZs) including relaxing the controversial 5,000-hectare ceiling on large SEZs, has been called off.

Authorities in eastern India arrested at least 100 villagers and deployed a huge police force to quell a protest against a proposed deep-sea port, officials said on Monday. Villagers in Orissa state, fearing they will lose their land without adequate compensation, forced officials to suspend construction work late on Sunday in Dhamra, where India is planning to build one of its biggest ports. The proposed port on the eastern coast will handle 83 million tonnes of cargo per year, said Santosh Mohapatra, chief executive of Dhamra Port Company Ltd.

EGRA (Midnapore East): Chief minister Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee today steered clear of the controversial issue of land acquisition for industrialisation at an panchayat election rally here today, thereby offering no opening to local MP Mr Lakshman Seth to raise the matter after he followed the chief minister to the dais.

It is said to be the only place in the world to house the mother plant of citrus-Indica (orange). And for this, the world's first citrus gene sanctuary was established in this reserve. Now, the Union Ministry of Forests and Environment has forwarded the nomination of Nokrek Biosphere Reserve in Garo Hills of Meghalaya for UNESCO recognition on the world network of biosphere reserves. Foresters say that forwarding of the nomination implies that the Nokrek Biosphere Reserve is admitted to be a pristine area and a biodiversity hotspot.

The state government has notified the classification and the conditions for leasing out panchayat land (village common land) on a long-term basis. The government, in a communication to the district authorities, has disclosed that the leasing process can be done in four categories and all these will invite different commercial rates, depending upon the nature of the lease.

With prices of commercial and residential property falling, investors are increasingly turning to a more traditional asset: farmland. Long seen as a declining industry, farming has received a fillip in the last few months as global demand for food has increased. As a result, the cost of agricultural holdings across the European Union has risen to record levels.

A month after the Bombay high court order which declared all houses on private forest land as illegal, embattled chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh on Wednesday stepped in to protect the estimated one lakh flats of 'innocent' persons on forest lands in the suburbs, especially in the Powai-Bhandup-Mulund-Thane-Kandivli-Borivli belt covering about 1,500 hectares. Another 75,000 flats are under construction in these areas.

The model code of conduct for the May panchayat polls will not hinder land acquisition for industry and other development projects, the state election commission said today. "Some district administrations had stopped land acquisition for industrial projects in view of the rural polls as they thought it would attract provisions of the poll code of conduct. But we have asked them to continue after examining the cases,' commission secretary S.N. Roy Choudhury said.

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