The Centre today unveiled a draft land acquisition bill that seeks to replace a 117-year-old law, prohibits the acquisition of multi-crop irrigated land and includes in the definition of “public purpose” plots for companies. The government posted the draft National Land Acquisition and Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill, 2011, on four websites, seeking comments from the public and all stakeholders. (See chart) The draft makes it clear that the government is not amending...

-The Times of India   Delhi Police on Friday denied permission to veteran social activist Anna Hazare to hold an indefinite hunger strike at the Jantar Mantar in New Delhi on August 16. The Delhi Police referred to the Supreme Court's 2009 order to deny team Anna permission for the indefinite strike anywhere in Delhi, the Times Now channel reports. The police, in its letter to Hazare, said that as Parliament would be...

Several primary school teachers in West Midnapore’s Jungle Mahal area have sought transfer in the face of Maoist “threats and extortion”. Since Mamata Banerjee’s government assumed charge on May 20, anti-Maoist operations in Jungle Mahal have stopped, allowing the rebels the opportunity to regroup and “start atrocities against teachers again”. In the past 15 days, at least 26 teachers have submitted applications to the district chairman of the primary education board seeking...

-PTI   The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) today said it would submit its report to the government in September, suggesting changes required in the key economic Acts such as Income Tax and FEMA to tackle the menace of black money and ways of retrieving it from tax havens abroad. ICAI had said earlier this month that the report was expected in August. A committee, headed by ICAI President G Ramaswamy, is...

The Right to Information Act was the great white hope of Indian citizens who are consistently denied rightful information. Not only does it specify that most information in the public domain would be provided to citizens by right, but it also ensured that failure to do so by the bloated bureaucracy would result in penalties for erring officials. Trust the government, though, to subvert its own good intentions. The state government has...