-Frontline The Land Acquisition, Resettlement and Rehabilitation Bill is an attempt to circumvent the hurdles before acquisition, such as rehabilitation of land losers, without much increasing the cost of land. THE preamble to the draft Land Acquisition, Resettlement and Rehabilitation (LARR) Bill is very noble; it talks about a “humane, informed, consultative and transparent process for land acquisition for industrialisation, development of essential infrastructural facilities and urbanisation with the least disturbance...

-The Hindustan Times Jaipur: Indian women are speaking out against violence, enraged by the gangrape of a 23-year-old inside a moving bus in Delhi. But past records show that women – especially in the hinterlands – who dare to speak up usually fight a lone battle against the system. Hindustan Times profiles a few courageous rape victims in Rajasthan, who are still awaiting justice. Bhanwari Devi (Bhateri, Jaipur district) Bhanwari Devi was gangraped in...

-The Economic Times CHENNAI: Scientists of IIT-Kanpur have thrown the kitchen sink at a high-tech solution to a messy problem: How to keep the world's largest railway network clean and prevent corrosion of lines when train toilets unload waste directly on the tracks. Bio-toilets developed by the Indian Railways and Defence Research and Development Organization have earned praise from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, but IIT scientists say they are neither environment-friendly nor...

-The Financial Express Differences have cropped up between the Planning Commission and food ministry on the issue of creation of two million tonne capacity silos through the public- private partnership (PPP) mode. Sources say while Food Corporation of India (FCI), the nodal agency to implement the project, has been insisting on making 'railway siding' mandatory for silos, the Planning Commission believes that the construction of railways siding would increase the cost of...

-PTI PATNA: Suffering huge power shortage, the Bihar government has devised a policy to encourage the use of solar energy in the state that would provide tax incentives for installing such plants on wastelands. The state government has done a survey which revealed that there is a tremendous scope for development of solar energy, energy minister Bijendra Prasad Yadav said. Accordingly, the state government has devised a solar energy promotion policy to popularise...