-PTI   The Commerce Ministry today said there was a need for a relook at the land ceiling rules for Special Economic Zones (SEZ) in view of protests against land acquisitions and it will shortly come out with a draft to bring changes in the SEZ Act of 2005. "There is a need [for a relook at] the SEZ rules and policies.... The minimum land requirement will also be relooked at, as land...

-The Times of India   Close on the heels of an application by Delhi Special Police Establishment, popularly known as Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), to add it as a party in the petition pending before the Kerala High Court challenging the exemption of central investigation agencies from the purview of Right to Information Act, 2005, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has also approached the court to make it a party. When...

The Government has a proposed timeline for the award of compensation under the Land Acquisition and Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill. This timeline was not in the draft of the Bill posted on the Government's Web site on July 29 for comments from stakeholders and the public. After these responses and consultation with the stakeholders, seven changes have been made, the Rural Development Minister, Mr Jairam Ramesh, said. The Minister said that the...

While Indian psychiatrists have rejected a World Health Organisation (WHO) study portraying India as the depression capital of the world, they say it has indirectly drawn attention to an acute shortage of trained personnel and facilities to deal with mental illness. "Declaring India as having the highest rate of major depression in the world is an aberration in interpretation," Dr. Roy Abraham Kallivayalil, secretary-general of the World Association of Social Psychiatry,...

-The Indian Express   With UPA constituent Trinamool Congress today joining the Opposition in critising the Communal Violence Bill, the Union government said that the legislation as drafted by the National Advisory Council (NAC) was not final. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was among the eight CMs who stayed away from the National Integration Council (NIC) meeting held in Delhi today, with communal violence on its agenda. Narendra Modi (Gujarat), Nitish Kumar...