-The Asian Age   West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, whose party Trinamul Congress is the key ally of the Congress, on Saturday gave her approval to the draft of the new Land Acquisition Amendment Bill, but with a rider. She wanted the Centre to give “a free hand” to the state government to introduce and implement a land acquisition law of its own. She made this announcement after a meeting Union rural...

In the backdrop of the Comptroller and Auditor General's scathing reports on award of 2G telecom licences and projects related to the Commonwealth Games, an extra-cautious Ministry of Home Affairs is seeking the audit of the processes of the proposed Rs 30,000-crore housing project for the paramilitary forces by the country's statutory auditor. This would be the first instance of pre-award scrutiny by the CAG. "We have received the reference,"...

-The Times of India     Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his CABinet ministers on Saturday declared their assets which were posted online, officials said. The list of assets and liabilities of the prime minister and his council of ministers were put on the prime minister's website - http://pmindia.nic.in/rti.htm. The list included details of the Prime Minister, 32 CABinet ministers, seven ministers of state with independent charge and 37 ministers of state. Urban development minister Kamal...

The Centre’s proposed land acquisition law will include a provision to create a land bank, one of the key demands made by Mamata Banerjee. Rural development minister Jairam Ramesh will meet the Bengal chief minister in Calcutta tomorrow and inform her about the provisions of the redrafted bill, which the Union CABinet is to take up on Monday. Mamata has been advocating the creation of a land bank that would specify areas...

-The Hindustan Times   The home ministry has raised concerns that a fresh proposal of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) to independently collect biometric details could lead to duplication of effort and lead to wastage of public funds. The CABinet had earlier mandated the census commissioner to create the national population register (NPR), a biometrics-based identity system. This required the census commissioner to create a data-base of all residents through door-to-door...