-IANS   With a spate of controversies and clashes over acquisition of farmland for private projects, the government Friday unveiled a draft bill to make the process transparent and equitable to all stakeholders, notably rural owners, with provisions not only for high compensation but also post-sale rehabilitation. The name: National Land Acquisition and Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill, 2011. The thrust of the draft is on compensation based on market value, not less than...

To take on the discontentment against land acquisition process, rural development minister Jairam Ramesh has cleared a draft bill for public comments. The minister's land acquisition and rehabilitation bill will be up on the ministry website just a fortnight into his term at Krish Bhawan. The Bill proposes a compensation of more than six times the circle rate of land, acquired for industrial and real estate projects. This is in...

The rates of maternal and infant mortality have improved only marginally, according to the latest Sample Registration System. THE country's largest demographic sample survey, covering 1.4 million households and a population of 7.01 million, during the period 2007-09, says that there was only a mild improvement in the infant mortality rate (IMR) and the maternal mortality ratio (MMR). The findings of the latest Sample Registration System (SRS), an exercise which...

Ruth Manorama started her work with the urban poor in her youth; there has been no turning back ever since. She is the powerful voice of Dalit women today. Is it easy being a Dalit in India? And a woman at that? Have things changed for the better for the Dalits who constitute roughly 16.23 per cent of our population, since the Constitution of India “cast a special responsibility on the...

A war has broken out in some parts of east-central India, especially some regions of the Dandakaranya forests that span across the states of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa, and Andhra Pradesh. Reportedly, there are thousands of Maoist guerrillas armed with sophisticated weapons confronting a vast array of paramilitary forces assembled by the government of India. Caught in the crossfire are millions of poor, marginalised and historically isolated adivasis. Their habitat, in which...