United lands of India

REGIONAL ROUNDUP

said the violence was forcing a rethink in the UPA government with respect to all future SEZ proposals. It also reported a rumour that a couple of senior Congress leaders had received fat commissions from major corporate houses to get SEZs sanctioned. The paper ended the report by saying that leaders close to Congress President Sonia Gandhi had denied the allegation.

With parts of Bangalore engulfed by communal violence, the controversy over SEZs did not receive much attention in the Kannada press. The issue was carried as fairly routine news in the national pages of most Kannada dailies. Only the market leader Vijaya Karnataka had an editorial on the subject. "The fear that the SEZ projects may end as real estate ventures is genuine. There is very little understanding of the subject among the citizens, especially the farmers. Prime farm land should never be acquired for SEZ, particularly when Indian farmers are finding agriculture no more a profitable profession. The compensation for farm land acquired should be higher than the market rate. Since farmers cannot live off the compensation for the remaining part of their lives, an alternative livelihood has to be evolved," the newspaper editorial stated.

The SEZ issue didn't hit the first page of Tamil daily Dinamalar. However, one of its editions, dated January 20, carried a single column report on page one on the government's intention to tighten SEZ norms. During the past week, the daily carried reports on the Singur-Tata controversy in its main and business sections.

Leading Bengali daily Anandabazar Patrika wrote that West Bengal is preparing a detailed roadmap of the industrial requirements of the state. Bartaman spoke of the uniform rehabilitation package that the government is finalising. According to Aajkal, the CPM has launched a 45-day campaign to make the people in the areas where acquisition is taking place, aware of the benefits of industrialsation.