-The Telegraph New Delhi: Several members of a joint House panel examining the land acquisition bill today slammed the government for holding "parallel" discussions on the same bill in the Niti Aayog, calling it an "insult to Parliament". Their criticism came a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who chaired a meeting of the governing council of the Aayog, warned the Opposition that the deadlock over the bill was "seriously" impacting rural...

-Business Standard This could help bypass central legislation and break the land Bill deadlock Ten big states, most of those ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its alliance partners, on Wednesday sought to unshackle themselves from the logjam over amendments to the contentious land acquisition Bill, 2013, by proposing to bring their own laws for boosting infrastructure development. At a NITI Aayog meeting to discuss the land Bill (the Right to...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: NDA-ruled states cannot "wait indefinitely for consensus" on amendments to the Centre's land bill and want to pass their own laws for smooth acquisitions, finance minister Arun Jaitley said today. Some lawyers said while many states have framed amended rules in the past, these were at variance but not in "complete contradiction" to the central land law. Jaitley was speaking after a meeting of the governing council of the...

-The Hindu Banks continue denying loans to low-income groups, insisting on sticking to a standard EMI route even though they are dealing with a complex social issue. In July 2012, Pradeep Kumar, a 36-year-old resident of Ladpur, a shanty town that sits on the north-western periphery of Delhi, applied for an employment loan at the magistrate’s office in Kanjawala district. Under the Pradhan Mantri Rozgar Yojana or PMRY — a funding policy...

-Livemint.com World Bank study says giving cash is a more efficient way to ensure social security Last week the government’s chief economic advisor Arvind Subramanian described the direct benefit transfer scheme as a “game changer”. The Pahal scheme, under which cooking gas consumers receive subsidy in their bank accounts, is one of the ways the government is trying to improve the efficiency of its welfare programmes using the so-called the JAM...