Antony, Jairam and Virbhadra say it will hit small retailers badly The United Progressive Alliance government pushed through the proposal to permit 51% FDI in multi-brand retail and 100% foreign equity in single-brand trading on Thursday, in the face of vigorous protests not just from the Opposition and ally Trinamool Congress (TMC), but also disquiet in a section of the Congress. Following up on this, the Congress Core Group met here on...

-India Today   Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh's pet land acquisition, rehabilitation and resettlement Bill, 2011 has run into major roadblocks in the parliamentary standing committee. Various stakeholders, including farmers' organisations, NGOs and legal experts contend that in its present form, the Bill is an empty shell that exempts 90 per cent major development projects - highways, nuclear plants, mines, SEZs et al-in the name of which, land is being acquired across...

As a national debate rages over the Indian poverty line, in the heart of Bandra, one of Mumbai’s richest suburbs, in a shanty with barely enough standing space for two adults, three-year-old Priya Doiphode, clad in a red tee shirt, lies listless on a string bed. Priya is one of the 83,243 children in Mumbai who are malnourished, according to government data, a statistic that makes Mumbai the most malnourished...

The Karnataka government, which is in the thick of controversy over acquisition of land for several big-ticket investors, is in no mood to accept certain changes proposed in the new Land Acquisition and Resettlement & Rehabilitation Bill tabled in Parliament last week. Instead, the government is in the process of revamping its existing land acquisition policy. The state government is not agreeable to the 80 per cent consent norm proposed in...

Kerala has not been very successful in the past to consistently attract big-ticket investments . The absence of strategic investments in key sectors has always been a hurdle in the state's path to economic prosperity. The new chief ministerOommen Chandy, known for speedy decision-making , wants to change this scenario. He has already been able to swing public opinion in his favour by addressing long-pending issues such as the Smart...