-The Hindustan Times The cabinet on Thursday cleared the land acquisition bill, paving way for its introduction in the winter session. With the new law in place, the government hopes to facilitate land acquisitions that have become a roadblock for the economy. The cabinet also removed bureaucratic hurdles that hold up highway projects. According to the provisions of the bill, consent of 80% of landowners would be needed to acquire land for private...

-The Times of India Crest Cash transfers have been described as the world's favourite new anti-poverty device. As India gets set to implement it, TOI-Crest finds out if the politics will ever be divorced from the cash The UPA government's ambitious plan to introduce direct cash transfers (DCT) by January 1, 2013 reflects both the political desperation of a beleaguered government and the urgent need to reform India's inefficient and corrupt public...

-Outlook The controversial Land Acquisition Bill was today cleared by the Union Cabinet, making mandatory the consent of 80 per cent of people whose land is taken for private projects. In the case of Public-Private Partnership projects, the bill makes mandatory obtaining of consent of 70 per cent of the people whose land will be for acquired. The bill was given the go-ahead at the Cabinet presided by Prime Minister Manmonan Singh. The bill...

-The Indian Express Too many of our economic prescriptions are based on dogma, empirical half-truths It has become fashionable to say, following the conclusions of Michael Spence’s Growth Commission, that there is no single recipe for growth, only some common ingredients. Such a claim brings a due degree of modesty to what we do or do not know about growth. And at the very least, such a claim has the virtue of...

-Governance Now An alumnus of IIT Kanpur, Ram Sewak Sharma is a 1978 batch Indian administrative service officer belonging to Jharkhand cadre. Sharma is praised for laying down IT infrastructure in Jharkhand. In his role as the director general of unique identification authority of India (UIDAI) Sharma is chauffeuring ‘Aadhaar-enabled service delivery’ which would result in saving huge financial resources to the public exchequer. In an interview with Pratap Vikram Singh,...