-The Hindustan Times There is a widespread perception of policy paralysis in the corridors of power. The two remaining years of the UPA's term is still not too short to reverse the current drift, but time is rapidly running out. The damaged economy needs urgent fixing as does restoring the credibility of an executive racked by scandals and the absence of a sense of direction. The people of the country long...

-Tehelka Justice Sujata Manohar on how the Biotechnology Bill is fundamentally flawed IN THE last few years, regulatory systems across the board have been undergoing an overhaul to fit the needs of a new era. Likewise, new laws are being chalked out to meet new needs, and several are receiving flak owing to the loopholes and regressive grounds on which these have been drafted. The relatively more recent one to regulate modern...

-The Times of India The legal roller coaster over the state Singur Act doesn't have much of an impact at ground zero because the division bench stayed the order for two months. The stay apart, opinions vary over the implication of the judgment. While high court lawyer and former mayorBikash Ranjan Bhattacharya argues that the tenor of the judgment calls for return of the possession rights on 950 acres of Singur...

-The Hindu Single judge’s order set aside; setback to Mamata government In a setback to the Mamata Banerjee government, a Division Bench of the Calcutta High Court on Friday struck down the Singur Land Rehabilitation and Development Act, 2011, terming it “unconstitutional and void.” The law was enacted by the Trinamool Congress-led government to return a portion of the land acquired for the Tata Motors’ small car factory at Singur to “unwilling farmers”...

Social protection has seen a sharp focus in the development policy agenda during the past decade. There is also a clear trend for making social protection, as well as food security, “rights-based”, rather than “discretionary”. Yet, no clear consensus has so far emerged concerning many basic design choices and implementation modalities. The Food Security Act 2011, which is now under the consideration of our parliament, is designed to achieve the...