-Business Standard Former rural development minister Jairam Ramesh tells Sanjeeb Mukherjee that the Ordinance to amend the land acquisition Act (2013) opens the door for forcible acquisition and undermines the spirit and the substance of the legislation. Edited excerpts: * An oft-repeated argument given by the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government to justify bringing an Ordinance to amend the land acquisition Act (2013) passed by your government is that many Congress-ruled States...

-AFP Paris: Wealth accumulated by the richest 1% will exceed that of the other 99% in 2016, the Oxfam charity said on Monday, ahead of the annual meeting of the world's most powerful at Davos, Switzerland. "The scale of global inequality is quite simply staggering and despite the issues shooting up the global agenda, the gap between the richest and the rest is widening fast," Oxfam executive director Winnie Byanyima said. The richest...

-The Times of India MUMBAI: The Modi government's squeeze on the UPA's flagship MNREGA scheme is translating into dramatic fund cuts for Maharashtra, which has a BJP government. Compared to the last financial year till December, central funds to the rural job scheme have almost halved, data with the state government reveals. The MNREGA-among the largest job-creation programmes in the world-provides a social safety net for the rural poor. Under the scheme,...

-Tehelka Why is India struggling to feed its girls and women, who are in desperate need of nutrition, asks Ruhi Kandhari One out of three women or adolescent girls who come through that door are anaemic," says Dr Savita Agarwal, who runs a charitable clinic at a slum in north Delhi, pointing at the door of her clinic. "They cannot afford to eat meat, eggs, fruits and vegetables that provide iron." Fifty percent...

-Business Standard Eight States and UTs have Muslim share of population in excess of national average of 13% The argument given by supporters of the ghar wapsi (homecoming) campaign is that unless corrective measures are taken up urgently, there is a danger to the existing demographic profile of the country. Many leaders of the Sangh parivar this reporter spoke to say that the way the population of some religious groups is growing,...