-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....

-The Telegraph Union minister Jairam Ramesh today described the proposed land acquisition bill as the “political agenda” of the Congress and said it would be reintroduced in the winter session of Parliament with no “significant” change. Five ministers had blocked the amended land acquisition bill in the cabinet last week on the ground that its provisions would stall iNDUSTRIALISATION and urbanisation. “The land acquisition bill is the political agenda of the Congress Party....

-The Economic Times Rural development minister Jairam Ramesh has ruled out any significant changes in the land acquisition bill. "There will be no significant changes to the bill. Just like the Supreme Court has ruled that there is a basic structure to the Constitution, there is a basic structure to the bill that cannot and will not be tampered with," Ramesh told reporters here on Monday. The bill, which was taken up...

-The Hindu In her article in The Hindu, (“Nailing the lie of the land,” Op-Ed, August 23, 2012), Ms Medha Patkar has forcefully and with reason argued against the devastating consequences of land acquisition. Without getting into the concerns raised with regard to the larger “development model” we would like to respond to the issues she has raised with the proposed Bill on Land Acquisition which seem predicated on an understanding...

-The Hindu The response to my article by Mr. Jairam Ramesh, Union Minister for Rural Development, and his colleagues is a welcome move towards a public debate which we have suggested, time and again, should be held in every State with all people’s organisations. I would like to briefly reply to some points in the Minister’s response: His argument that land is finite cannot be used to justify forcible acquisition. The Bill...