-The Times of India NEW DELHI: With the parliamentary committee examining the land bill failing to reach a consensus, the government is likely to allow the current ordinance to lapse and look to tweak the earlier 2013 law to spur industrialization and infrastructure development. Fierce arguments between Congress and BJP members over the retrospective 24(2) clause and clause 101 dealing with return of unutilized land ensured the joint committee of Parliament did...

-Economic and Political Weekly A number of state agencies and non-governmental organisations have come forward to facilitate farmers/breeders to register their crop varieties and obtain plant variety certifi cates. But can these agencies bring forth a change in the mindset of the small farmers and seed savers' groups who view the current intellectual property regime with scepticism and continue to keep away from it? Shalini Bhutani (shalinibhutani@hotmail.com) is a legal researcher and...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: A joint parliamentary committee has favoured restoring most of the provisions of the UPA's 2013 land law into the land acquisition bill the Centre wants to pass, signalling a climb-down by the government. Sources said that even the BJP members on the 30-member panel had favoured scrapping the exemptions that the NDA's current bill provided from the social impact assessment (SIA) and consent provisions. This would not have been...

-The Indian Express According to sources, the authorities have taken strong note of the fact that Surendranath got involved in Yakub’s case without permission. The Supreme Court administration is contemplating action against Dr Anup Surendranath, who resigned as the court’s Deputy Registrar (Research) on Friday, after expressing his opinion that its decision in the Yakub Memon case amounted to “judicial abdication”. The court administration feels it was “gross misconduct” on Surendranath’s part to...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Centre has proposed restoration of the provisions for "consent" and "social impact assessment" in the land acquisition bill, a climbdown aimed at wriggling out of the stalemate triggered by its bold attempt to liberalise the law resented by industry and which was seen to have slowed land acquisitions to a crawl. It is learnt the Centre would undo most of the contentious changes it brought...