Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday assured a delegation of Rashtriya Lok Dal leaders that government will move the crucial bill to amend the Land Acquisition Act in the coming session of Parliament, its leader Ajit Singh said. After a half-an-hour long meeting with the Prime Minister, the RLD chief said that he apprised the former about the violence over land acquisition in Noida and reminded him about his commitment to...

Tihar jail today has the largest collection of charged or convicted top officials, a powerful ex-minister, sundry politicians and officials. Maharashtra had a teflon-coated chief minister who was ‘sacked’ to a cabinet post in Delhi after being long untouched by many scandals. Another just exited. A former Jharkhand chief minister is in jail on charges of looting his state treasury and accumulating funds abroad. The powerful founder of the Nationalist...

A LEAFY VILLAGE in Kerala, Pathanpara, never found access to India’s electricity grid. That is why for the last several years, this village has been generating its own electricity. Raju, a dhoti-clad cashew nut farmer, operates Pathanpara’s five kilowatt (KW) micro hydropower plant. He lives in the village and earns a salary of Rs 2,250, paid by the People’s Electricity Committee (PEC). The power generated is shared equally by the village,...

The Sonia Gandhi-headed National Advisory Council is expected to recommend the “painless” Tamil Nadu model of land acquisition when it takes stock of the draft central law at its meeting tomorrow. The draft Land Acquisition Bill 2009 awaits Mamata Banerjee’s nod. The Centre was wary of introducing it before the Bengal elections, but with the polls nearing their end, the panel felt it was time to look at it. A panel source...

Campaign against Bhushans seen as a bid to scuttle proposed Bill Prashant Bhushan has appeared for social causes without charging any fees: NAPM “His voice against Operation Green Hunt has also raised hackles in certain quarters” Even as the Union Finance Minister and chairman of the joint drafting committee on Lokpal Bill, Pranab Mukherjee, said over the weekend that the controversy surrounding some panel members would not impact the formulation of the Bill,...