Four senior Posco-India officials including three South Korean nationals were on Saturday taken hostage by anti-project activists, but were released unharmed seven hours later, official sources said. The officials and South Korean nationals were taken hostage after they went to the project site near Paradip in Jagatsinghpur district and were taken hostage around 10.30 am by the anti-project activists demanding its scrapping.
In corporate India where family disputes have become far too common, the Miglanis work as a team.
Work at the proposed Posco site in Jagatsinghpur district was stalled for the third consecutive day on Tuesday as locals staged a road blockade at a key junction demanding that their demands be fulfilled including enhanced compensation to land losers.
The leaders of Communist Party of India, Communist Party of India (Marxist), Forward Bloc, Rashtriya Janata Dal and Samajwadi Party along with their supporters held a rally on Mahatma Gandhi Road before marching towards the state Secretariat.
The land was being acquired by officials of the district administration, departments of revenue and forest and Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation.
Project opponents, led by Posco Pratirodha Sangram Samiti, the organisation spearheading the agitation against the South Korean company, held a massive rally and protest meeting on Saturday at Balitutha, entry point to the project site. People from the affected villages such as Dhinkia, Gobindpur, Nugaon and Gadkujang attended.
What is urgently needed are transparent and highly credible mechanisms for mapping actual impacts on the ground -- and sifting the truth from claims made by different sides of the dispute, says Rajni Bakshi.
After putting the project on hold last year, Union Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh on Monday granted conditional clearance for South Korean major Posco's $12 billion steel mill project in Orissa.
Orissa's mega steel project Posco has slipped into a situation of Shakespeare's 'To be, or not to be' with the Union environment minister putting a halt to forest clearance.
Environment ministry has given its go-ahead to POSCO's planned steel plant in the country, but has asked it to spend on "social commitments", a company spokesman said, raising the project's cost by $600 million to $12.6 billion.
After being halted for more than a year, land acquisition for the showpiece Rs 52,000-crore Posco steel plant in Odisha resumed on Sunday amid clashes between police and protesters.
However, the minister did not specify a time frame under which the land transfer will be completed.
Last month, the FAC passed the buck to the tribal affairs ministry to see if the project proponents violated any tribal rights.
Posco India on Wednesday pressed for handing over of 2,700 acres of land to the company for start of construction of its much hyped project in the state.
The role of Meena Hembram and 20 others came to limelight after the Meena Gupta panel, which submitted its reports to the union Ministry of Environment and Forest on October 18, pointed out that there were seven tribal families living in villages demarcated to house the 12 mtpa steel mill.
The minister was referring to the four member panel comprising three activists-- Uma Pingle, Devendra Pandey and V Suresh.
Rejecting Orissa government's formula of excluding 300 acres of private land from the proposed Posco site area near Paradip, the Communist Party of India (CPI) on Friday demanded that the entire site be shifted elsewhere and an official statement made about its overall impact on the state.
South Korean steel giant Pohang Steel Company (Posco) has abandoned its plan to use the Paradip Port due to its low cargo-handling capacity and instead decided to develop a new port, six kilometres from Paradip, at a cost of about $200 million.
The environment clearance granted to Posco's mega steel project in Orissa in January 2011 will remain suspended till the environment ministry reviews it afresh.
Even as its 12 million tonne steel project in Orissa is waiting to take off, South Korea's Pohang Steel Company, the world's fifth largest steel maker
In the past five or six years, the state has received investments worth around Rs 80,000 crore (Rs 800 billion) -- on the ground -- not counting the memoranda of understanding and plans like Mittal's, that are yet to take off.
The company has obtained the stage-I forest clearance from the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests. Subject to fulfilment of the stage-I conditions in terms of mitigation measures, steps will be taken for the next stage of approval, said official sources.
Korean steel major POSCO expects to begin production in India by 2009 as part of its plans to increase its global capacity to 50 million tonne per annum within next 10 years.
Villagers have stepped up protests at the Posco steel project site in Orissa's Jagatsinghpur district.
It could be Nandigram all over again. Tension gripped the three panchayats near Paradip in Orissa on Wednesday
The government's revalidation of the environment clearance for its steel plant in Odisha may not go far and it may still be years before the project takes off.
Korean major considers offering locals an export market in addition to compensation.
After a gap of nine months, the Orissa government on Wednesday resumed land acquisition work for the Rs 52,000-crore (Rs 520-billion) Posco steel plant, amidst tight security even as those opposed to the project started thronging the area.
This is the third incident in the last three days when activists took at least 13 Posco officials into captivity when they tried to enter the proposed steel plant area
SC has asked Posco to submit a composite forest diversion proposal for its steel project in Orissa, thereby putting the company in a Catch22 situation.
The land acquisition work will start in a peaceful manner," Steel and Mines Minister Raghunath Mohanty told reporters adding the land acquisition work had been halted for nine months due to a 'stop work' order from the Ministry of Environment and Forest.
Over 80 personnel from the Jagatsinghpur district administration and Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation were engaged for the land verification work conducted with the help of global positioning system.
Posco Daewoo, the South Korean conglomerate whose Cielo sedan and Matiz hatchback were once the pride of Indian car owners, is looking to re-enter India. And its return journey is riding on plans to sell electric bikes and e-cycles. The company termed India's robust economic growth and surging consumer demand as reasons behind its comeback plans, saying they make India "one of the world's most promising consumer markets," according to Y S Choi, general manager, Posco Daewoo South Korea.
The state government has already decided to challenge Orissa High Court's July 14 judgement that set aside recommendation of Posco-India's name for prospecting license (PL) over Khandadhar iron ore reserve.
With the four-member central team set up by the Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF) delaying submission of its report on Posco's proposed steel project by one week, BJD heavyweights were hopeful over the fate of the country's biggest FDI.
Some news reports have suggested that the South Korean steel giant is not willing to settle for anything less than a majority stake in the proposed joint venture and has also refused to transfer it's FINEX technology to SAIL.
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