-GRISTMedia.com In the course of my work as part of a team set up to look into the socio-economic status of Adivasi communities, there were several things I learned about the Land Acquisition Act, 2013, and the amendments to it. Here are some important questions about land and the Act that we should be asking: * What is the State's relationship to land and its citizens? This a key question - and one...

-Business Standard The central government's price stabilisation fund for potatoes and onions proposes to take on only half of any losses incurred by agencies of state governments in this regard, such as civil supply corporations. The draft guidelines for the Fund, creation of which was announced in the 2014-15 Budget by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, say if any central government agency (such as Nafed or SFAC, the Small Farmers Agri-Business Consortium)...

-The Financial Express Only 6% farmers have gained from selling wheat and paddy directly to any procurement agency and the diversion of grains from the public distribution system is close to 47%. Against this backdrop, the Shanta Kumar panel's report on reorienting the role and restructuring of Food Corporation of India (FCI) needs to be adopted by the government at the earliest and in totality. This will indeed make for huge...

-The Hindu Business Line The Subramanian panel report on environment regulation should not be accepted in a hurry Environmental governance in India is becoming increasingly contentious. Environmental quality is declining sharply on indicators such as air, water and forest cover. At the same time, there are calls for regulatory flexibility to enable pursuit of a "development agenda". One of the underlying reasons for the failure of environmental regulation has been the adhocism of...

-The Hindustan Times The Centre may act against some of the 188 NGOs red-flagged by the Intelligence Bureau for alleged misuse of foreign funds, suspected extremist links and proselytization. These non-government organisations were reported by the internal spy agency and a list sent to the home ministry, documents accessed by HT have revealed. The country's top tax body the central board of direct taxes (CBDT) and enforcement directorate (ED), which tracks foreign funds...