-The Guardian Communities have more hope than ever of seeing off companies trying to acquire their land, with support from media and NGOs A new report on land acquisition by the Munden Project/Rights and Resources Initiative brings an important angle to the land "grab" debate. Rather than focusing on the ethics of land grabbing, the report makes the business case for working with local communities, arguing that failure to inform or fairly...

-The Business Standard Implement it with watershed development schemes to alleviate poverty The United Progressive Alliance government appears to be upbeat regarding the prospects of its flagship scheme, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), which provides a universal, self-targeting guarantee of 100 days of employment to every household in all rural districts of India. “MGNREGA has tremendous potential to increase agricultural production, which we have not been able to...

-The Telegraph The world lauds us as the largest democracy. Yet, how much of a democracy are we and where must we improve? Elections and their consequences: We have regular elections. They are supervised with increasing effectiveness as far as booth capturing, bogus voters and violence are concerned. The influence of money has not waned; if anything, it has increased. It is not as it used to be, for paying voters only....

-The Guardian The government's decision to allow major infrastructure projects to go ahead without obtaining consent for forest clearance paves the way for the violation of village land rights, say rights groups Land and tribal rights in India have been dealt a new blow after the government announced last week that major infrastructure projects will be exempt from obtaining consent for forest clearance from tribal communities living in the forest, a decision...

-The Economic Times BANGALORE: It is one of the most expensive and ambitious projects in India's technology history connecting 2,50,000 gram panchayats in the country with a fibre optic network. It would need Rs 21,000 crore and as it is being planned now, the project needs exceptional project management, cutting-edge technology, and close coordination between several government agencies. While the government is preparing to start the project in the next two months,...