-Frontline Riding roughshod over farmers' concerns, the Gujarat government notifies a project to develop the Mandal-Becharaji Special Investment Region, an industrial hub spread over 50,884 hectares, affecting 44 villages. But the villagers see it as a real estate scam and are determined to resist it. GUJARAT may soon have several new townships. The Narendra Modi-led government has proposed to set up 13 special investment regions (SIRs), which are essentially industrial hubs...

-PTI NEW DELHI: The Planning Commission will approach the Cabinet next month with a draft bill for an institutional mechanism to speedily resolve issues related to public contracts and a separate note on the progress of PPP projects with remedies to solve problems faced by them. "The Planning Commission is in the final stages of drafting a bill for setting up an institutional mechanism to address issues hampering Public Private Projects (PPP)...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Prime Minister on Friday called for a political consensus on "more difficult reforms", indicating that the government was considering a cut in fuel subsidy, which would mean higher petrol and diesel prices, and bringing in measures to curb gold imports. Making a statement in the Lok Sabha on the current economic situation, Manmohan Singh admitted that the current account deficit had gone up sharply and...

-Economic and Political Weekly The government has notified a Draft Land Reforms Policy which, on paper, has all the requisites of an earnest programme. Yet, the near total failure of earlier efforts at land reforms in India leave little room for hope that something substantial will at last be done to combat landlessness. Harsh Mander (manderharsh@gmail.com) is with the Centre for Equity Studies, New Delhi, and works with survivors of mass violence,...

-PTI Aadhaar card is not mandatory to avail of subsidies under government schemes including on domestic cooking gas, the government on Friday said in the Rajya Sabha. "Aadhaar card is not mandatory for availing subsidies. If any public sector undertaking is doing it, we will correct it," Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Rajeev Shukla said. He was responding to members' concerns that despite giving an assurance that the card was not...