-The Times of India Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has asked members of the ministerial panel to expeditiously clear the land acquisition bill, showing urgency on the legislation that is part of the core Congress agenda but has been held up for three years because of in-house differences. The bill was referred to a group of ministers after the Cabinet erupted over its key provisions, with ministers handling economic and infrastructure wings arguing...

-The Times of India Rural development minister Jairam Ramesh said he would not dilute the compensation package and rehabilitation norms in the draft land acquisition bill, throwing a challenge at ministerial colleagues who last week dubbed it anti-industry to block its approval by the Cabinet. "This bill is part of the political agenda of Congress and we are a political party. These people should know we are in government, they are ministers...

-The Times of India Rural development ministerJairam Ramesh said he would not dilute the compensation package and rehabilitation norms in the draft land acquisition bill, throwing a challenge at ministerial colleagues who last week dubbed it anti-industry to block its approval by the Cabinet. "This bill is part of the political agenda ofCongress and we are a political party. These people should know we are in government, they are ministers because...

NDTV speaks to experts - M S Swaminathan, Devinder Sharma, Alok Sinha, Naresh Gujral, T Haque, K K Narayanan and Sharad Joshi about the lack of storage affecting the farm sector after a bumper harvest with a record production of grains, leading to a rise in farmer suicides. The question remains, is there a way out?   ...

Even as 2011-12 saw Union ministers going on an unprecedented number of foreign trips, the MEA has refused clearance on several grounds for at least 39 proposed trips by 25 Union ministers since June 2009. Some of them are no longer ministers. All these trips, barring one, fell in the official category. The ministers had proposed to travel to destinations such as the US, UK, France, Italy, Japan, Australia and South Africa,...