-The Hindu Business Line The Congress law and the BJP's amended version both fail to address the lack of transparency in property deals A toxic mix of hypocrisy, amnesia, opportunism, ignorance, and paternalism has led to a mess on the land acquisition legislation. It seems certain that whatever law we end up with is going to be bad law. It will not serve the primary purpose of any eminent domain law -...
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A new public policy for a new India -Shiv Visvanathan
-The Hindu What makes public policy exciting and potentially inventive is the contested nature of the public sphere. It is anchored in a diversity of perspectives which challenges the dominance of one subject. India is a country full of paradoxes. The elite in the country are forward-looking; they emphasise the need for reskilling but they conduct all this with backward-looking institutions. An acute observer once said: "we want to be [a] knowledge...
More »From prosperity to penury -Ajoy Ashirwad Mahaprashasta
-Frontline NAIB SINGH hanged himself a fortnight ago in the land he had been tilling for five years at Bareh village in Mansa district of Punjab. He had hoped for a successful rabi wheat crop, but unseasonal rains reduced him to further penury. The 25-year-old left behind a debt burden of Rs.10 lakh for his family. His mother, Mahinder Kaur, does not know whether to mourn her son's death or lament...
More »Land Acquisition Bill: Missing the big, bleak picture -Sanjay Kumar & Pranav Gupta
-The Hindu With the Land Acquisition Bill in the limelight, nobody is talking about the real reforms that farmers need. A major survey finds that almost half the respondents don't want to continue with agriculture. The unseasonal rains over the last few weeks have resulted in enormous loss of crop output across many States of North India. This has shifted attention from the issue of land acquisition to other important problems faced...
More »In true colours -Sudhir Kumar Panwar
-Frontline The BJP-led NDA government has, in the two Budgets it has presented so far, revealed itself to be very different from the pro-farmer image that its leading election campaigner and now Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, projected. THE Bharatiya Janata Party's manifesto for the 2014 Lok Sabha election states: "Agriculture is the engine of India's economic growth and the largest employer, and BJP commits highest priority to agriculture growth, increases in...
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