West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee faced a major embarrassment on Friday as she was forced to put on hold an ordinance restoring land in Singur to farmers. The state government on Friday instead proposed to table a Bill in the legislative assembly on Tuesday so that the land in Singur-currently the site of an abandoned Tata Motors factory-can eventually be given back to farmers. "The ordinance that was promulgated on...
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It's a good decision : Pranab Mukherjee on the bill on Singur land
PTI Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Saturday made light of the criticism being faced by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for first announcing an ordinance and then saying a bill would be moved in the assembly to reclaim the 400 acre at Singur. "So what? It's a good decision," Mukherjee told reporters in reply to a question before leaving for his Jangipur Lok Sabha constituency in Murshidabad district. The chief...
More »Anna Hazare sets Aug 15 deadline for Lokpal Bill by Abantika Ghosh
Beginning his day-long hunger strike at Rajghat to protest against corruption and the recent police brutality, the 73-year-old-Gandhi devotee Anna Hazare said that if the Lokpal Bill was not passed, he would fast unto death at Jantar Mantar from August 16. Anna described his movement as the second battle of independence but underlined Gandhi's non-violent path. He said his Wednesday fast was to condemn the police action on Ramdev's supporters at...
More »Offices vandalized, CPM cries political vendetta by Romita Dutta
Sheikh Sajed Ali doesn’t dare leave the Jamshed Ali Bhawan party office in West Midnapore’s Keshpur. It’s the only refuge the sharecropper has been able to find since the Left Front led by the Communist Party of India-Marxist, or CPM, got wiped out in the recent assembly elections by the Trinamool Congress and its allies. Ali is terrified to venture out. He says his family is being asked to pay `2...
More »Citizen Cane Vs King Canute by Saikar Datta
No one’s buying the government’s desperate arguments to keep the prime minister above Lokpal scrutiny Points Of Friction Government and civil society representatives have sparred on the question of including the prime minister in the proposed Lokpal Bill on seven key grounds: Point: The Prime Minister is accountable only to Parliament, and to the people of India Counterpoint: Does this mean a PM can never face action for criminal liability, however serious the charge,...
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