Under attack over violence in Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati on Thursday launched a scathing attack on Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party on the issue of land acquisition.
The first ever airport-city project in which Singapore's Changi airport holds a 26 per cent stake was expected to be the pride of West Bengal. Instead, a steady stream of pitfalls --from land acquisition problems to allegations of corruption amongst promoters -- has taken the sheen off the project.
Congress leader and Union minister Sachin Pilot was on Sunday arrested by Uttar Pradesh Police while he was on his way to violence-hit Bhatta-Parsaul village in Greater Noida district to meet families of farmers injured in the recent agitation on land acquisition.
A day after Congress leader Rahul Gandhi raised the issue of alleged burning of people in Uttar Pradesh's Bhatta Parasaul, the focal point of farmers stir on land acquisition issue, ashes from a site were on Tuesday lifted and sent to forensic laboratory for examination.
The state government was under a mammoth debt of Rs 2 lakh crore.
On Thursday, Congress vowed to continue with its protests against the Uttar Pradesh government's land acquisition policy after party General Secretary Rahul Gandhi was arrested and released following his visit to the epicentre of the stir to support the agitating farmers.
Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi was arrested late on Wednesday night by the Uttar Pradesh police capping a day of high drama after he slipped in unnoticed in pre-dawn hours to support the farmers agitating against the state government's land acquisition process for an expressway project.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati on late on Wednesday night launched a counter offensive against opposition parties accusing them of provoking the farmers of Bhatta Parsaul into violence and charged the Centre with doing nothing to bring a new law for land acquisition.
The strong police force deployed at the Bhatta Parsaul village, which witnessed violent clashes between the police and farmers, apparently failed to notice the Congress General Secretary when he reached the Delhi suburb in a mobike at around 4 am.
The situation was tense but under control on Tuesday in parts of western Uttar Pradesh hit by farmers' unrest over land acquisition as police released sketches of 24 troublemakers who incited violence in Agra and maintained a strict vigil.
Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung on Wednesday assured Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee that land acquisition issues for the proposed Tata Steel plant in the neighbouring country would soon be resolved.
Posco's mega steel plant in Orissa is inching forward with the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests clearing a proposal under which Posco will plant trees on an area equivalent in size to the forest land where the project is coming up.
The first sign that shows a government is serious about an issue is when it appoints a high-powered committee to look into matters.
Rajya Sabha will sit for late hours in last week of the first half of the budget session from Monday to clear the pending legislative and other businesses.
If 2019-20 (FY20) was an unusual year for highway construction in India, with the pace of work slowing down for the first time since the Narendra Modi government assumed power in 2014, largely due to the general elections in May and liquidity crunch, the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020-21 (FY21) only made matters worse with lockdowns and labour unavailability. The pace of highway construction in 2021-22 (FY22) has not been able to bulldoze the pandemic barriers in a year marred by two Covid-19 waves - the second at the start of the fiscal year, the third towards the close. With localised lockdowns and restrictions on mobility, highway construction growth in the country has now fallen to a five-year low.
With clouds of storm hovering over Parliament's budget session, President Pranab Mukherjee on Monday sought the "cooperation" of all MPs in the smooth conduct of legislative business but gave no indication of plans to bring changes in the controversial land acquisition ordinance.
Real estate firms are facing a cash crunch because of low sales, increasing inventory costs and higher cost of funds.
A Uttar Pradesh court on Monday dismissed a petition challenging a lower court order directing the Greater Noida police to file a case against 15 policemen and a commandant for allegedly raping a woman during the crackdown on farmers opposing land acquisition in Bhatta-Parsaul villages.
The NBA had moved applications for expunging certain adverse remarks made by the apex court in the May 11 judgement lashing out at the NGO for making false statements in the affidavit for securing favourable order.