The Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council has proposed that landowners should be paid six times the registered sale deed value as compensation and a solatium in case of compulsory acquisition by the state. The council sat through the day today firming up recommendations for the land acquisition bill the Centre plans to introduce in the next session of Parliament. Sonia was present for nearly six hours. It also proposed that compensation should...

The management of food and poverty in India is getting increasingly unreal. On the one hand, the country has a bumper harvest with every likelihood of the grain mountain to be procured adding to the existing mountain of official stocks. Without adequate storage space, a not-so-insignificant part of it will rot and go to waste. On the other hand, the government will not allow wheat exports until it is clear...

-The Hindustan Times   Separate CBI teams from New Delhi arrived in Orissa on Tuesday and began probing into the alleged large-scale corruption in implementation of the rural job scheme under MGNREGA, official sources said on Tuesday. The officials of the premier investigating agency have already reached the districts of Rayagada, Kalahandi and Koraput, an official said adding they have met district level officials before verifying documents relating to MGNREGA. "The state government has...

-The Times of India   Farmers agitation against land acquisition in Kolayat in Bikaner district started on a violent note on Tuesday when thousands of protestors clashed with police and smashed a couple of government vehicles. The farmers led by local MLA and former minister Devi Singh Bhati were demanding better compensation for their lands acquired by the state government and a rehabilitation package on the lines of that given by...

-Mangalorean.com   Amid some misgivings here about India's acquisition of vast stretches of land, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi Wednesday rejected charges of land grab as "loose talk" and welcomed Indian investment for development. "There is no land grab and there will be no land grab. Indian companies should not be constrained by this loose talk," Zenawi, the longtime leader of Ethiopia, said at a joint press conference with Indian Prime Minister...