-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Concerns of industry took a backseat as political parties, spurred by the oncoming election season, joined hands in Lok Sabha on Thursday to pass the land acquisition bill that enshrines consent of landowners and steep hikes in compensation. As when the food security bill was passed earlier this week, competitive populism took centrestage with Congress toasting Rahul Gandhi as the inspiration behind the legislation and BJP...

-The Hindu The long-pending Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill was passed by the Lok Sabha on Thursday night after Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh assured the House that the measure allowed enough room for State governments to implement it as per their requirements. The Bill is only setting a bottom line for fair compensation, rehabilitation and resettlement in the case of land acquisition and State governments were free to further...

-The Hindu There was a last-minute hiccup in the passage of the Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill in the Lok Sabha on Thursday when the Trinamool Congress demanded that the clause mandating private projects to take the consent of 80 per cent of landowners be changed to 100 per cent, as is prevalent in West Bengal. The State, Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh said, could change this provision, but...

-The Hindu The National Food Security Bill (NFSB) has been derailed yet again in the past few days due to continuous disruptions of Parliament. The Congress Party made an ill-advised attempt to pass the bill on August 20, Rajiv Gandhi's birth anniversary. Sure enough, the opposition parties went out of their way to scuttle this move and fell over each other to disrupt the Lok Sabha that day. This is only...

-PTI Aadhaar card is not mandatory to avail of subsidies under government schemes including on domestic cooking gas, the government on Friday said in the Rajya Sabha. "Aadhaar card is not mandatory for availing subsidies. If any public sector undertaking is doing it, we will correct it," Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Rajeev Shukla said. He was responding to members' concerns that despite giving an assurance that the card was not...