-PTI   A bill seeking to empower the West Bengal government to return land in Singur to farmers was today passed by the Assembly amidst a walkout by members of the Opposition Left parties. The Singur Land Rehabilitation and Development Bill, 2011, was passed by voice vote along with some amendments brought by the government. When the Bill was put to vote by Speaker Biman Bandopadhyay, the Left MLAs, who cited legal loopholes...

The Centre is exploring the option of helping out Bengal by stepping up assistance for specific schemes, a route that allows room for manoeuvre within rules. The Centre’s line of thought emerged on a day Bengal finance minister Amit Mitra was in Delhi to discuss ways to bail out the cash-starved state government. Mitra, who had an hour- long meeting with his Union counterpart Pranab Mukherjee, remained tight-lipped on what they discussed....

-The Times of India   The state Cabinet meets on Monday to discuss the Land Reclamation Bill before it's tabled in the assembly, in all likelihood the day after. The bill seeks to revoke the Singur lease agreement with the Tatas and take back the land leased to them. The Spea-ker has also convened a meeting with the business advisory committee to chalk out the modalities of the discussion on the...

-The Telegraph   The Raj Bhavan secretariat had expressed “procedural doubts” about the now-discarded Singur ordinance on Thursday and the governor had signed it only after an assurance from minister Partha Chatterjee that the law department had not come across any potential red flags, Writers’ Buildings sources said today. The government had to drop the ordinance yesterday because it is unconstitutional to promulgate one while the Assembly is in session. It decided...

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has said that the ordinance issued by the MAMata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress government in West Bengal to reclaim 400 out of 997.11 acres of land at the abandoned small car project site of Tata Motors at Singur was “unconstitutional” as the Assembly was then in session. A special session of Assembly was convened on May 30 to elect the Speaker, and the House was given...