The Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council has proposed that landowners should be paid six times the registered sale deed value as compensation and a solatium in case of compulsory acquisition by the state. The council sat through the day today firming up recommendations for the land acquisition bill the Centre plans to introduce in the next session of Parliament. Sonia was present for nearly six hours. It also proposed that compensation should...

Land acquisitions in India are invariably marked by violent protests. Is politics responsible for stirring up passions? Is it loss of a means of livelihood that landowners resent? Or is there a fundamental problem with the way acquisition is done that stirs up a hornet's nest? Look at the last issue first. There are two fundamental problems with the present system of land acquisition: the process of acquisition, and the...

-Mangalorean.com   Amid some misgivings here about India's acquisition of vast stretches of land, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi Wednesday rejected charges of land grab as "loose talk" and welcomed Indian investment for development. "There is no land grab and there will be no land grab. Indian companies should not be constrained by this loose talk," Zenawi, the longtime leader of Ethiopia, said at a joint press conference with Indian Prime Minister...

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee may have complained of inheriting empty coffers from the Left Front government that ruled the state for 34 years, but cold statistics reveals that it created a base for her to build upon. During the last few years of the Left rule, Bengal witnessed rapid industrialization. Former chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee steered the state to fourth position in terms of rapid growth of industry...

The agriculture ministry has decided to drastically reduce the number of central schemes after it found that most of its schemes, barring a few like the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojna (RKVY), have become redundant. The farm ministry thinks only 10 of the 51 existing schemes should be sufficient to take care of the sector. The total outlay for agriculture schemes is 15,034 crore. "It is true that many of our 51 schemes...