-Live Mint The current policy on compensating landowners could adversely affect character of India’s future growth The Parliament is currently considering a land acquisition, rehabilitation and resettlement Bill (LARR Bill), as are various state legislatures. These are likely to affect the pace and character of future growth in India in a significant way.  Setting up new industries, service establishments and real estate development will inevitably require land to be acquired from rural areas....

-People's Democracy IT seems the Sheila Dixit government of Delhi, backed by powerful elements in the UPA-2 central government, will let nothing stand in the way of water privatisation in the capital. Several earlier attempts going back many years to fully or partially privatise distribution of water, especially the big loan application to the World Bank in 2005, were foiled by vigilant community organisations, public interest groups, trade unions and political...

-Pratirodh Bureau Activists led by Narmada Bachao Andolan leader Medha Patkar have alleged that the much awaited Land Acquisition Bill was actually a "diluted version" of the Standing Committee's recommended bill.   The activists under belonging to various groups, including National Alliance of People’s Movements, National Forum of Forest people and Forest Workers, Kisan Sangharsh Samiti and Sangharsh claimed that the "positive" position taken by the Standing Committee had been diluted by the...

-The Indian Express New NSS data affirms that GDP growth remains the best way to tackle poverty Amid the pervasive economic gloom, provisional data from the 68th round of the National Sample Survey Office’s just-concluded household consumer expenditure survey offers a sliver of good news. According to it, average inflation-adjusted expenditure for July 2011-June 2012 rose by about 4.5 per cent in two years, with the poorest 10 per cent of the...

The Bill to regulate medical education and govern human resource in health is a highly diluted version of the original draft. Distortions in the area of Human Resource for Health (HRH) are the root cause of many of the ills facing the health sector in India. Among them is the shortage of qualified medical professionals. The estimated density of 19 health workers (qualified and unqualified) per 10,000 population is nearly 25...