-Economic and Political Weekly After coming to power in 2014, the National Democratic Alliance government took several measures to dilute the pro-poor provisions of the Land Acquisition Act of 2013. Though it has backed down, several questions remain over the way the Modi government has dealt with the issue of land acquisition. Santosh Verma (santosh.econ@gmail.com) is at the Council for Social Development, New Delhi. Land acquisition—by private corporations or the state—has raised vital...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Supreme Court today asked the Centre to explain its failure to implement the previous government's flagship food security programme, aimed at providing cheap grains to two-thirds of the population with a special focus on children and pregnant and lactating women. The scheme, estimated to cost Rs 1.25 lakh crore a year, was launched in 2013 and was to come into force from July last year. But the...

-Hindustan Times New Delhi: About 90% of buildings in the national capital are not structurally equipped to withstand a seismic zone (SZ) IV earthquake but the Centre and Delhi government are “not interested” in taking any corrective measures, the Delhi high court said on Wednesday. Saying that the government was waiting for a “disaster to happen”, a bench of justice BD Ahmed and justice Sanjeev Sachdeva directed the Centre and Delhi government...

-Economic and Political Weekly The health ministry's move on HPV vaccine feasibility is ill-advised. The union health ministry has asked the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (NTAGI) to examine the feasibility of introducing the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine in the country’s universal immunisation programme. The NTAGI has been given three months for this task. The HPV vaccine, which is supposed to protect against cervical cancer in girls and women, is generally...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Law minister Sadananda Gowda said on Friday the ambitious e-courts project is successfully running in 13,000 courts across the country where details of 4.76 crore pending and decided cases are available online. More than one crore judgments are already online and there is constant updating of records where all past judgments would be made available. The Cabinet has given its consent to initiate phase-II of the...