-The Indian Express Giving a pointer to the much-awaited Bill on land acquisition reforms, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar on Tuesday said the government will not dilute the provisions which restrict the acquisition of multi-crop and single crop agricultural land for non-farming purposes. “We will ensure that acquisition of high-yielding farmland is not allowed for non-agriculture purposes. This is a serious issue and the government is concerned about it. One should not be...

-The Economic Times A new book by Bibek Debroy on Gujarat looks at how this much-talked about state has performed in economic terms. The author argues history, luck and administrative clarity have been the determining factors. There has been a discernible pickup in Gujarat's growth performance since the 10th Plan (2002-07), the five-year Plans being natural periods for breaking up the timeline. It's tempting to argue that there is nothing exceptional in...

-The Guardian  Oxfam calls on World Bank to stop backing foreign investors who acquire land for biofuels that could produce food International land investors and biofuel producers have taken over land around the world that could feed nearly 1 billion people. Analysis by Oxfam of several thousand land deals completed in the last decade shows that an area eight times the size of the UK has been left idle by speculators or is...

-Bloomberg It wasn't the Gettsyburg Address -- unless it's poker faces we're comparing. Future historians aren't going to be parsing Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's speech for hidden meanings, and rhetoricians won't be delighting in the majesty of its style and the compression of its effects. It inflamed no passions, as did Mitt Romney's words about the "47 percent," and asserted no big idea or thesis, unless there was one contained in the...

-The Hindu In an atmosphere of mistrust of the government, only an independent safety regulatory mechanism can counter the scaremongering against civilian nuclear power I work at an institution funded by the Department of Atomic Energy (which, however, does no nuclear research: the DAE funds a wide variety of institutions and areas in science). About a year ago, I had an e-mail from a journalist who wondered why scientists (including colleagues at...