-The Hindu   The West Bengal government on Monday tabled the Singur Land Rehabilitation and Development Rules Act, 2011, which gives the government the option of giving unwilling land owners at the disputed plot at Singur a quantum of land equivalent to what they had lost. The Rules, which were laid in the Legislative Assembly by State Industry Minister Partha Chatterjee, defines an unwilling owner as someone who owns a plot of...

-The Economic Times   West Bengal government on Monday filed a caveat in Supreme Court so that no petition by Tata Motors Ltd (TML) over the Singur land issue is heard on ex-parte basis. The move was made subsequent to TML counsel Samaraditya Pal's efforts to (a) first get an exparte ad-interim stay on land distribution at Singur which was turned down by Justice Soumitra Pal (b) then appeal to a...

The episodes of violence in land acquisition by the government, as witnessed recently in Bhatta-Parsaul in Uttar Pradesh and in other states earlier, occur because patterns of violence are inbuilt into the process. Despite a bill pending in Parliament since 2007, there has been little effort by political parties to evolve a consensus on acquisition of agricultural land for non-agricultural purposes. The law as at present and also the provisions...

Ensuring food security to all is one of India’s top policy agendas today. Given a large mass of poverty in the country, it is not surprising and no one would perhaps disagree with the need to achieve this as soon as possible. But the varied policy instruments that can be used towards achieving this goal draw sharp differences among the stakeholders. What is food security? The World Food Summit of 1996...

Many in India feel betrayed that neoliberal economic policies have not ended but increased fraud and corruption Corruption is not exactly new in India. Quite apart from the extensive historical evidence of its spread, during and after the "mixed economy" period of state planning, the "licence-permit raj" was regularly accused by commentators of breeding graft, constraining economic activity and forcing citizens to be at the mercy of corrupt officialdom at all...