-The Economic Times When the country was growing at more than 8 per cent for about a decade, services and manufacturing were the darlings of policy-makers, investors and talking heads. Agriculture, a segment that employs nearly half the hundred crore population of the country, was hardly mentioned even in passing. This year, thanks to a poor monsoon, suddenly the farmers are the centre of India's growth story, or the lack of...

-Bloomberg It wasn't the Gettsyburg Address -- unless it's poker faces we're comparing. Future historians aren't going to be parsing Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's speech for hidden meanings, and rhetoricians won't be delighting in the majesty of its style and the compression of its effects. It inflamed no passions, as did Mitt Romney's words about the "47 percent," and asserted no big idea or thesis, unless there was one contained in the...

-Outlook Goa government has constituted several teams to inspect and quantify the iron ore stacked at various points in the state before allowing it to be exported, a senior official said today. The state government, in its order dated September 10, had decided to allow only the already extracted and ready for transportation ore to be exported, thus discouraging fresh extraction. The teams comprising officials from the mines and forest departments and Goa...

-The HIndustan Tiimes After Nandigram and Assembly polls, Mamata Banerjee once again summoned her intellectual brigade, this time to drum up a protest platform against FDI in retail and other issues, the reason for which she withdrew support from the UPA government. From singers, Tollywood actors and playwrights, pro-Mamata intellectuals showcased the protest with not only strong rhetoric but songs and recitals at Metro Channel in Esplanade. The programme under the...

-The Telegraph The rural development ministry has claimed that an amended version of the land acquisition bill has taken into account concerns of industry though several cabinet ministers had blocked it last month fearing it would stall industrialisation. In a note last week to all members of a Group of Ministers (GoM) on the bill, the ministry said the revised draft had relaxed key provisions, including consent norms for acquisition of land...