So did Wang Shijun, a former village party secretary and son of farmers who still lived in the family cave.

ECONOMIST: In rural China, a private oil boom became a state-owned one

The prime mover behind Tawa's auction is a village party secretary, Zhang Yuwang, who happens to own, he claims, the usage rights to most of the land in question.

ECONOMIST: Land reform in China

While the 30-year contracts could make it harder for cadres to abuse the system, local officials arguably can still revoke those contracts, as the party secretary did in Ligezhuang village to start a quarry.

CNN: UP AND DOWN ON THE FARM

General Provisions. (a) For purposes of this order, "affected tribe" means any Indian tribe, band, nation, pueblo, village, or community that the Secretary of the Interior acknowledges to exist as an Indian tribe pursuant to the Federally Recognized Indian Tribe List Act of 1994 (25 U.S.C. 479a), located or with interests in the affected area.

WHITEHOUSE: The White House

Mr. Wu, who died of lung cancer at age 84 on Monday, responded to China's market overhauls in the early 1980s with a politically savvy strategy to charge up the economy of Huaxi, the village in eastern Jiangsu province that he headed as Communist Party secretary.

WSJ: He Led Village to Become China's Richest

Vandana Krishna, the state's secretary of Women and Child Development, says the funding gap could be solved by giving village panchayats, or local governments, a special fund to make loans to anganwadis.

ECONOMIST: Child malnutrition in India