-The Economic Times   Contracts for building 11,050 kms of roads will be awarded in the current fiscal year involving an estimated investment of Rs 70,000 crore, as per the target set by the Ministry of Road , Transport and Highways . The ambitious road building plans were reviewed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today with Road Transport Minister C P Joshi and senior officials of the ministry and the National Highways...

“Right to privacy,” like other fundamental rights in the Constitution and statutory rights under various laws, will soon become a reality. Union Law Minister Veerappa Moily indicated that a bill in this regard would be introduced in the monsoon session. The Right to Privacy Bill (a copy is with The Hindu) is to provide for such a right to citizens of India and to regulate collection, Maintenance, use and dissemination of...

Exasperated with the public perception of its role, the Indian government appears keen to somehow abdicate its key sovereign function of making land available for economic development by dumping it on the private sector. This is wrong. The Maintenance of up-to-date land records, the scientific identification of tracts for a shift from agricultural to non-agricultural uses and the smooth transfer of land assets are the functions of the sovereign. The...

Singur , Greater Noida , Posco, Jaitapur and so on. The issue of land acquisition seems to now have acquired dimensions which political parties are finding it difficult to deal with. As each state faces political problems, it has tried to pass on the buck to the Centre arguing that they are merely doing what the central Land Acquisition Act 1894 (the Act) allows them to do. The implication is that...

The curiosum of a ‘red regime’ with a knack to get re-elected term after term for over more than three decades within the ambit of a full-fledged multi-party democracy has finally disappeared. The Left Front, led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist), has not merely lost the poll in West Bengal, it has been made mincemeat of. Its vote share has come down from close to 50 per cent...