Aseem Shrivastava

Kakinada farmer Narasimha Murthy’s 5-acre farm supports 50 people, each living on around Rs 800 a month, more than twice the official rural poverty line. Why would farmers like him in 16 villages in Andhra Pradesh want to give up this livelihood for the Kakinada SEZ? What does the SEZ offer them anyway? (more…)

Nandini Sundar

It is hard to decide which is more unappetising – the spectacle of Buddhadeb Bhattacharya declaring that the CPM had paid protestors back in their own coin at Nandigram, or the BJP and Congress condemning the violence there, ignoring their own culpability for similar behaviour in Chhattisgarh and Gujarat. (more…)

Sampat Kale

The growth in GDP is the new mantra of development and everything under the globe is meant for growth and development. Since the last two years land acquisition for SEZ has raised many questions regarding ‘development’ but government has not paid enough attention to it yet. Over the past one year the issue of land acquisition sparked all over through forced land acquisition by MIDC and SEZ in Sinnar block of Nashik district. (more…)

Kannan Kasturi, 01 Oct 2007

The origins of today’s law for land acquisition for SEZs act can be traced to 1824, when the British colonial power felt the need to codify the undisguised forcible seizure of land. While colonial rule has long gone, the unjust application of the principle of eminent domain remains, writes Kannan Kasturi for India Together. (more…)

C.R. Bijoy, 22 October, 2007, Countercurrents.org

No other economic ‘reform’ in India has seen such a rapid expansion of militant protests and conflicts as Special Economic Zones (SEZs). Local inhabitants, particularly in Raigad (Maharashtra), Jhajjhar (Haryana) and Nandigram (West Bengal) cutting across caste, class and party affiliation rose up in revolt, with Nandigram seeing the most militant uprising leading to at least 14 deaths in police firing on 14 March 2007. These come in the wake of growing struggles against land acquisitions for industries met nonchalantly with deadly state terror, as in Kashipur, Lanjigarh and Kalingangar in Orissa, Singur in West Bengal or Bastar in Chattisgarh turning central India into a war torn zone. (more…)

Patrik Oskarsson and Manshi Asher

Local communities dependent on agriculture have in the past year and a half come out in vehement opposition to the acquisition of land for Special Economic Zones (SEZs). Examples abound from Nandigram in West Bengal to Raigad in Maharashtra, Jhajjhar in Haryana and Nandagudi in Karnataka. The SEZ policy is the government’s most recent tool to spur economic growth. (more…)

This is an important article to read to understand why it is essential to ask for the repeal of the Act.

http://www.geocities.com/frontierweekly/recent-issues/vol-39-45/missing-39-45.pdf