-The Times of India   In a brutal attack on Right to Information Act (RTI) activists, village elders of Gollalamamida in Pedapudi mandal in East Godavari district have imposed a 'social boycott' on three students, one of them visually challenged, for complaining against the local officers on their irregularities. The students ran away from the village and met police commissioner of Vijayawada N Madhusudan Reddy here on Wednesday seeking protection. He assured...

NCM orders Compensation for boys framed in Mecca Masjid blast case Four years after the Andhra Pradesh police picked up 21 Muslim boys and wrongly accused them of involvement in the Mecca Masjid bomb blast, there is finally some hope that they can resume normal life without the stigma of terrorism. The hope comes via the National Commission for Minorities (NCM), which recently made four key recommendations to the State government. A...

-The Economic Times   An empowered group of ministers has in-principle agreed to give direct cash subsidy to the poor for kerosene, as recommended by a task force headed by Nandan Nilekani, but it will launch the scheme only after consulting the state governments. "We cannot finalise any programme on kerosene unless we discuss (it) with the state governments," oil minister Jaipal Reddy said. The EGoM on fuel, headed by finance minister Pranab...

The “80 per cent consent” clause in the draft land acquisition bill may be extended to government projects too, rural development ministry sources have said. In its current form, the draft bill makes the consent of 80 per cent of the landowners mandatory only in case of land acquisition for private industry. In case of land acquisition for government projects, the draft merely requires “consultations” and not consent. However, among the several...

Draft Bill on land acquisition pegs Compensation on market value but how government agencies will reach this value remains a concern In response to farmers’ agitation in the last few years over faulty land acquisition and poor Compensation—the Tata-Singur fiasco in West Bengal, Posco in Orissa or the recent farmers’ agitation in Noida—the ministry of rural development is planning to replace the archaic Land Acquisition Bill, 1894. It has come up...