-The Hindu Chandigarh: The ruling Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) in Punjab will launch a nation-wide protest against the Centre's proposed move to impose wealth tax on agricultural land. Describing the decision as a blow to debt-ridden farmers, media advisor to the Chief Minister Harcharan Singh Bains said here on Thursday that the SAD- BJP alliance will also launch state-wide peaceful dharnas from May 2. A decision to this effect was taken at...

-Live Mint Government reaches near consensus as BJP agrees to support Bill in Parliament; industry not enthused by plan The government may be close to pulling off one of India's most significant policy changes with a near consensus among political parties on a new land acquisition law, taking the country to the verge of removing what's perceived as the biggest impediment to the next wave of industrialization. At the conclusion of an all-party...

-The Hindu Around 72 villages from Maharashtra's Raigad district have started a sit-in demonstration in front of the tehsil office in Mangaon against the multi-billion-dollar ambitious Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC). . The villagers who began the agitation on Wednesday will hold dharna against the acquisition of 67,000 acres of land from these 72 villages. Each village will submit its letter of opposition to the project in the government office during the dharna...

-Frontline The Land Acquisition Bill runs into a roadblock as political parties fail to reach an agreement on the substantive features of the draft Bill or on the amendments proposed. The efforts of the United Progressive Alliance government to broker a consensus on the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill, 2012, which has been pending for over a year, have not paid off not because...

-Live Mint Farmers resisting India's biggest FDI deal are paying a heavy price for their stand In June 2005, the Orissa government signed the country's biggest foreign direct investment deal yet with the South Korean steel manufacturer Posco for a $12 billion (around `65,856 crore) plant near Paradip in the mineral-rich state. Livelihoods in eight existing agricultural and fishing villages were to give way for the project that was intended to be...