-The Indian Express The pace of land acquisition, which has been taking place in India since Independence, increased after liberalisation. In more cases than not, it has been successful, that is, both buyer and seller have been satisfied with the outcome. But today, land acquisition is being portrayed as next to impossible. This perception is not based on reality and needs to be changed. The farmer is wrongly being portrayed as...
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Seven years ago, everyone saw Delhi’s air take a deadly U-turn but no one did a thing -Pritha Chatterjee & Aniruddha Ghosal
-The Indian Express The way the graph moves tells the story of a public health disaster that has been allowed to happen: over the last 15 years, the fall and rise of the lethal, fine dust that clogs your lungs every day in the nation's capital. After the historic Supreme Court judgement in 1998 forced all public transport vehicles, an estimated 100,000, to switch to cleaner Compressed Natural Gas (CNG), the levels...
More »Empower, don’t patronise, the farmer -Maitreesh Ghatak and Parikshit Ghosh
-The Indian Express The government's attempt to amend the UPA's land acquisition law is facing stiff resistance in Parliament and outside. The Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (LARR) Act, 2013, combined three different approaches to resolve conflict over land. One is to let money speak. It increased compensation amounts significantly. The second is to let farmers speak. Projects involving private companies had to earn the consent of 80 per cent of...
More »The ‘greatness’ of a ‘landmark’ judgment -Peter Ronald deSouza
-The Hindu The supporting props offered for the striking down of Section 66A diminish the arrogance of government and reinstate the ‘genuine' rule of law. Reading the judgment, one is tempted to ask this question: Is it a landmark judgment or just a great one? To appreciate the difference between "great" and "landmark", it is necessary to begin with some very fine distinctions. A great judgment is one that restores the constitutional...
More »Delhi's organic farming shocker: Data a load of manure
-India Today Believe it or not, almost 70 per cent of the national Capital was used for organic farming in 2011-2012, according to National Project on Organic Farming (NPOF), which comes under the Ministry of Agriculture. While the total geographical area of Delhi is 1.48 lakh hectares, NPOF data shows 100238.74 hectares (almost twice the size of Mumbai) was used for organic farming during that period. What smacks of data fudging and...
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