-The Business Standard States often misuse emergency powers to muzzle protests from owners A new land acquisition law was on the anvil for years. The latest avatar of the Bill, not yet laid on the table of Parliament, is still being re-looked and reworked with nearly 160 changes proposed. Issues are many, like the "public purpose" fig leaf, the consent clause, sharing the compensation payment, resettlement and rehabilitation of the displaced people...

-First Post It’s so brutally ironical that Ram Singh, perhaps the most hated man in India today for allegedly masterminding the Delhi gangrape, became a victim of rape himself. We still don’t know how he died, but his father has made it public that Singh had been raped in jail. Not just him, even his co-accused had been raped as well. Retributive justice, some say, because the accused had been made to realise...

-The Indian Express Setting up women-only banks overlooks the reasons for their exclusion The women-only bank mentioned in the finance minister's budget speech is like flowers and chocolates — a sweet thought but just as unsubstantial. Financial exclusion of women is a real problem. It deserves far greater effort than sops like a women-only bank. Such a bank also runs counter to the logic of mainstreaming, rather than ghettoising, gender issues. It is...

-The Economist A steadily rising Muslim population continues to fall behind IT TELLS you something hopeful perhaps that, for all the horror unleashed when two bombs laid by presumed militant Islamists ripped through a crowd in Hyderabad on February 21st, India’s public response has been muted. The blasts killed 16 and injured 117. Both the method of the attack (bombs in metal tiffin boxes strapped to bicycles) and its location (near a...

-PTI Two days after the semi-nude protest by anti-Posco agitators, Odisha police have registered a case against three women and president of Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti (PPSS) Abhaya Sahu on charge of obscenity in public. "The case has been registered at Abhaychandpur police station under section 294 (a) and other sections of the IPC," Jagatsinghpur Superintendent of Police Satyabrata Bhoi said on Saturday, adding that appropriate action will be initiated against the...