(Updates with Vedanta protest) By Nityanand Shukla RANCHI, India, Oct 20 (Reuters) - Thousands of villagers marched in eastern India on Monday to protest against a proposed Arcelor Mittal <ISPA.AS> <MT.N> steel plant, police said, the latest in a series of confrontations over industry on farmlands. Armed with bows and sickles, the villagers, members of poor local tribes in the state of Jharkhand, held banners that said: "We need food, not steel". They shouted slogans, swearing they would give up their lives but not their farmlands. The world's largest steelmaker is planning an $8.2 billion plant in the mineral-rich state, which it hopes to build over four years. The company needs 11,000 acres (4,450 hectares) for the 12 million tonne plant and an industrial town. But angry villagers say they will not give up land for the project. "We will not give an inch of land to Mittal steel," Dayamani Barla, a protest leader, said. "We will further intensify our agitation, if the Mittals make any effort to grab our land." A company official in Ranchi, the state capital, said they were trying to defuse the situation by talking to villagers. The protest reflects a larger stand-off between industry and farmers unwilling to surrender land in a country where two-thirds of the population depends on agriculture for a living. Experts say state governments and companies will have to pay more attention to the needs of farmers in a country where industrialisation pressures are mounting. Violent protests by villagers have delayed a bauxite mine planned by Vedanta Resources PLC <VED.L> in Orissa state. On Monday, hundreds of villagers protested in the streets of Bhubaneswar, the state capital, against the proposed mine, which recently got the green light from India's Supreme Court. "We will not abide by the court's ruling, we will not give in to the company," Jitu Jakaka, a protest leader said. Angry protests by farmers have delayed construction of a steel plant in Orissa state by South Korean steel firm POSCO <005490.KS>, which could be India's single biggest foreign investment to date. Regular demonstrations by farmers and political opposition forced India's Tata Motors Ltd <TAMO.BO> to move the factory for its low-cost Nano car out of West Bengal state earlier this month. The communist government also had to abort plans to set up a Special Economic Zone for a chemicals complex in the state last year. The villagers in Jharkhand opposing the Mittal project distributed 15,000 fliers in dozens of villages around the proposed plant site, urging people not to part with their land. (Additional reporting by Jatindra Dash in Bhubaneswar; Writing by Bappa Majumdar; Editing by Simon Denyer and Alex Richardson)
Supporters of India's main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) shout as they listen to their party leader Lal Krishna Advani at a public rally in the northern Indian city of Varanasi ...
