-Express News Service   The Centre said on Monday the Land Acquisition (Amendment) Bill would include the recommendations made by Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC), and, once passed, the legislation would ensure that there are “no more Singurs” in the country. The NAC has prescribed a seven-point test for a having a humane legislation on land acquisition and rehabilitation. “The recent recommendations of the NAC will be included in the Land...

-Express News Service   After initial refusal to sanction funds under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) to the six districts under CBI scanner, the Centre on Monday released Rs 170 crore for the wage employment programme. “The Government received the Central assistance and this has been distributed among six districts,” said Panchayati Raj Secretary PK Jena.  Though the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) released the first installment of `...

  Can we agree in this country on a floor of human dignity below which we will not allow any human being to fall? No child, woman or man in this land will sleep hungry. No person shall be forced to sleep under the open sky. No parent shall send their child out to work instead of to school. And no one shall die because they cannot afford the cost of...

When he drank poison on January 11, farmer Hargovind Harne’s run-down hut was bursting with freshly harvested paddy. Yet he was neck-deep in debt. Even the bottle of pesticide that he used to take his own life had been bought on credit, as the bill shows. His large stock of grain wasn’t the only puzzle in the 47-year-old’s suicide. Vidarbha is infamous for continuing suicides by cotton farmers but Harne grew food,...

-The Economic Times   All public data-from that on glacier meltdowns to monsoon charts to benami land--will be freely available at the click of a mouse with the launch of a national data portal next month. Modeled on US chief information officer Vivek Kundra's Data.gov.us project, the science and technology ministry's portal-- data.gov.in--aims to democratize data, and make the government more "open". "We plan to launch data.gov.in by next month. Once the National...