-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 Hindustan Times The recent regularisation of around 900 colonies in Delhi is an inevitable and welcome move. No city can allow a majority of its residents to live in conditions of illegality, particularly when that illegality is a direct outcome of its own history of urban planning. However, why are moves to regularise unauthorised colonies not being followed by similar moves to regularise bastis (often reductively called 'slums') that house...

-The Hindu Jamia Teachers’ report reveals framing of several innocents The Jamia Teachers’ Solidarity Association has in its latest report titled “Framed, Damned, Acquitted: Dossiers of a Very Special Cell” chronicled 16 cases in which most of those arrested were accused of being operatives and agents of various terrorist organisations, only to be acquitted later of all charges by the courts. In some of these cases the courts even held the police...

-Outlook The Women and Child Ministry is planning to make changes in the Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act, 1986 to include electronic media and internet under its purview. At present the legislation only includes depiction of women in publications, WCD secretary Prem Narain told reporters at an interaction here. "We are also thinking of raising the penalties mentioned in the Act, to make them more contemporary," the WCD secretary said, adding that...

-IPS News UXBRIDGE, Canada- Growing water shortages in many countries are a major threat to global security and development and should be a top priority at the U.N. Security Council, a panel of experts said in a new report. However, that report ignores the biggest threat to water security: neoliberal policies of the free market economic system laying waste to the natural world and turning water into a commodity, activists counter. China...