The Supreme Court's decision not to extend the deadline for land acquisition for the Mumbai SEZ is a victory for Maharashtra's farmers. The SEZ would have affected 45 villages in Raigad district. The company initially offered Rs.25 lakh a hectare for productive land and Rs.12.5 lakh a hectare for "wasteland" plots. The farmers of Pen, Uran and Panvel taluks were not interested.

THE ADIVASI communities of Gujarat are advocating for a novel counterpoint to the brutality inherent to the Special Economic Zone. An idea they call the 'Green Economic Zone' (GEZ) addresses the wants in the SEZ model that the adivasis have long demanded.

The controversial aluminium giant Vedanta has just been awarded an environment award. This is a sham In a letter, more than 170 organisations wrote urging jurors of the Golden Peacock Award to dissociate themselves from Vedanta and the WEF. The letter says that the basis for the award-the claim of zero discharge from the Lanjigarh refinery-was inaccurate.

Under a new proposed Bill, the government is arming itself with the power to block websites without the right to be heard. Why is no one talking about it? The Information Technology (Amendment) Act, 2008 seeks to give teeth to existing laws on information technology and cyberspace.

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