-The United Nations The United Nations today launched a programme to empower poor rural women through economic integration and food security initiatives. “Accelerating Progress Toward the Economic Empowerment of Rural Women” is a five-year initiative that will focus on improving food and nutrition security, increasing rural women’s incomes, enhancing leadership and participation in rural institutions, and creating a more responsive policy environment at national and international levels. “When women are empowered and can...

-The Times of India The ministerial panel vetting the land acquisition bill witnessed strong demand on Thursday that it kick in retrospectively. Urban development minister Kamal Nath is reported to have argued that a window for applying the new bill for old cases of acquisition should be retained. If the demand gains traction, it could reopen a significant section of the draft legislation which initially had the retrospective clause but was later...

-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...

-PTI Ahead of a meeting of Group of Ministers, Rural Development Ministry sought to allay apprehensions of industries and infrastructure sectors over the controversial land acquisition bill, contending that the amendments in the legislation are investor-friendly. In a note circulated to the members of the Group of Ministers (GoM) headed by Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, the Ministry highlighted that the requirement of consent of all for acquiring land has been diluted and...