-Firstpost.com It is becoming increasingly difficult to retain respect for Nobel laureate Amartya Sen. He seems to surface in the media every time the UPA government is about to legislate its pet follies, providing intellectual succour to mindless spending and corruption wrapped up in the package of anti-poverty schemes. Yesterday, Sen bobbed up just when the UPA - under siege for every known scam in India - tried to start discussions on...

-Frontline   But in Modi's Gujarat the difference between development and darkness is all too visible to those who care to see. NARENDRA MODI may have won three consecutive elections and ruled Gujarat for more than a decade after he was posted there almost as a night watchman, to borrow a cricketing expression. He may have mobilised a massive fan following that is shouting to catapult him into the Prime Minister's post,...

-The Indian Express Law on land acquisition will reduce distortions in the use of a scarce resource Land records are in a mess in most states. While satellite imagery can yield an authentic image of the plots, it cannot determine ownership. The land acquisition issue is nearing the end of its first phase. With the government accepting key BJP demands, a consensus has been evolved and the Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill...

-The Hindu     Minister relaxed tax benefit-related residency norms for foreign investors Finance Minister P. Chidambaram on Tuesday allayed apprehensions over the imposition of wealth tax on agricultural land within urban area limits to provide a big relief to farmers, especially in Haryana and Punjab. Mr. Chidambaram relaxed the tax benefit-related residency norms for foreign investors routing funds through countries such as Mauritius and lowered the withholding tax rate to five per cent from...

-Economic and Political Weekly The Saradha group's collapse has possibly bankrupted lakhs of small investors robbing them of their life svaings, and has rendered thousands of its agents jobless. The scam highlights the failure of the government and its regulatory agencies to reign in the mushrooming chit fund companies in West Bengal. It also brings under the scanner the Trinamool Congress' proximity with the tainted group. In the wake of the...