-Tehelka Bureau Though well-meaning, the new Land Acquisition Act is far from being a perfect legislation. But the urgency to amend a law even before a real field test signals a larger agenda. By all counts, this was expected. Long before he became the BJP and subsequently the nation's chosen one, Narendra Modi had made it clear that his model of development gains from the ease of doing business. Then, days ahead...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Four days before Prime Minister Narendra Modi made his first public statement surprisingly backing the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), former UIDAI chairman Nandan Nilekani met with the PM and finance minister Arun Jaitley and persuaded the new regime to persist with Aadhaar numbers and the Direct Benefits Transfer (DBT) scheme. This meeting - a life-saver for the Aadhaar programme - happened on the first...

-Vikalp A remarkable feature of the first budget of the Modi government was that the numbers in it (see Table 1 for a summary) - of the revenues that are anticipated from different source, the expenditures allocated to different heads and the fiscal deficit which expresses the gap between the aggregates of these - were almost identical to those in the interim budget presented earlier in the year by the UPA...

-Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR) The paper examines the restructuring of expenditure in the first budget of the new government, and its feasibility. It compares the increase in budget allocations for key macroeconomic aggregates and sectoral plan outlays for the BJP and UPAII interim budget, and the change from the interim budget. Although overall tactics are aligned to the strategy articulated, the alignment is only marginal as yet, because...

-The Economic Times Most state governments have sought a relook at UPA's Land Acquisition Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013, pushing the Centre into convening an all-party meet, probably as early as the next fortnight. A consensus at the meeting of all parties heading state governments will let the Centre amend the law in the current monsoon session itself. This revision of the land law is imperative for the Centre to execute major infrastructure...