-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Union environment ministry, which generally avoids sharing details of air pollution-linked deaths, made an exception on Thursday when it said in Parliament that more than 35,000 people had died due to acute respiratory infections (ARI) across India in close to 10 years. More than 2.6 crore cases were reported every year during the period. Although international studies have attributed far more deaths to air pollution in...

-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...

-Business Standard Ruling party MPs suggest changes to six of the nine amendments proposed by govt to the 2013 Act The government is set to relent on the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (Amendment) Bill, 2015. On Monday, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) members of a Parliamentary joint committee on the Bill suggested amendments that effectively bring back the social impact assessment and consent clauses,...

-The Indian Express Sources said all the 11 BJP members in the Joint Committee of Parliament on land bill on Monday moved amendments seeking to bring back social impact assessment and consent clause. In a major climbdown following sustained opposition pressure, the government on Monday agreed to drop most of its contentious amendments to the Land Acquisition Act of 2013, bringing back the crucial clauses related to consent of affected families...

-Business Standard The government has sought Parliamentary approval for an extra Rs 18,995 crore social sectors during 2015-16, almost half of the total extra spending asked for over the Budget Estimates (BE). In a supplementary demand for grants, tabled in Parliament last week, the government placed additional expenditure for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), National Food Security Act (NFSA), Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, drinking water scheme, Pradhan Mantri Gram...