When it was almost certain that the governments of the country were to take their hands off from total acquisition of land for a private project, the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council has started thinking otherwise. The thought went out for hundred per cent acquisition by the government. Had this come at the germinal stage of discussion about changes in the colonial Act, it could have resulted in Mamata Banerjee’s face...

-The Hindu   A day after West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee announced that her government had issued an ordinance to reclaim the land at Singur that had been acquired for the since-relocated Tata Motors small car project, a delegation of Left Front legislators met Governor M. K. Narayanan here on Friday to point out that according to the Constitution an ordinance could not be promulgated when the Assembly was in...

-The Hindu   Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia said on Friday that the 12th Five Year Plan, which commences in 2012, would have to contend with a “severe water crisis.” “The water crisis is even more serious than the energy problem,” Dr. Ahluwalia said at a two-day regional consultation meeting of the southern States. Urging for a political consensus on the adoption of the Public Trust Doctrine in the...

Discussions with Plan panel, finmin and NAC almost over, draft law to be finalized at the next eGoM meeting The Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government is expected to introduce the National Food Security Bill, a proposal that aims to provide subsidized foodgrain to the poor, in the monsoon session of Parliament even as the procurement of rice and wheat touches a record high. The ruling Congress party had pledged in its...

In its wisdom, the state giveth and the state taketh away. When it acquires farmlands claiming eminent domain, there is blood on the streets. However, when it quietly bestows largesse on chosen ones, it is barely noticed. At worst there is a lawsuit. There were a dozen lengthy judgments from the Supreme Court in the past two months on land acquisition disputes — a mark of the times. But the biased...