-The Hindu Land Bill to be taken up in the next phase of budget session Despite an aggressive Opposition giving the NDA's parliamentary managers a tough time during the first half of the budget session that concluded on Friday, the Modi government found reason to pat itself on the back. With the exception of the contentious Land Acquisition Ordinance, it succeeded in converting five of its six ordinances into Acts of Parliament. On Friday,...

-Outlook The NDA seems bent on subverting the RTI Act. Is the slow dismembering of the CIC part of the plan? We Have No Recall For the first time since its inception, CIC's functions expropriated by the govt A search committee set up to appoint a new CIC chief says meeting details cannot be revealed; "highly confidential" RTI appeals pertaining to prime depts...

-Frontline If Budget 2015 is any indication, the Modi government is going beyond what could be called benign neglect of agriculture to policy moves that are likely to harm its viability. IT is scarcely surprising that farmers are upset with the Narendra Modi government. Indeed, the rosy dreams created by that famous campaign advertisement of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), when farmers spoke of the high crop prices and better cultivation conditions...

-Business Standard Marriages on hold, children being returned from schools over unpaid fees; the rural economy is bearing the brunt of unseasonal rains, a crisis in the sugar cane sector and a fall in prices of farm pro Hapur/ Meerut: In the mid-afternoon, when most farmers are returning home to rest, Rana Ranjit Singh is sweating buckets on his farm in Uttar Pradesh's Hapur district, searching for vegetables left undamaged after untimely...

-The Hindu As power lines and roads slice up forest cover, it becomes clear that a knowledge economy must tackle development with a wider perspective than that of mere short-term gains In just two meetings in August 2014 and January 2015, the National Board for Wildlife considered projects involving over 2,300 hectares of land in and around wildlife sanctuaries and national parks. In four meetings between September and December 2014, the Forest...