-The Business Standard Contrary to earlier claims, farm growth may be robust The projection by the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) of robust agricultural growth of above five per cent and a consequential handsome rise in rural incomes comes as a silver lining to India's otherwise gloomy economic scene. The CACP's reckoning, based on a rigorous mathematical model, virtually discounts the agriculture ministry's kharif crop output estimates (called first advance...

-The Times of India MUMBAI: On the eighth anniversary of India's landmark transparency legislation today, data mined on the Right to Information (RTI) Act shows it is, indeed, India's sunshine law, with an estimated 40 lakh people using the Act during 2011-12, the latest year for which all-India data is available. The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI), an independent organisation closely associated with the RTI legislation, data-mined Annual Reports filed by the...

-Economic and Political Weekly   Much work remains to be done if the new Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act has to mark a meaningful shift for India's adivasi communities. Chitrangada Choudhury (chitrangada@csds.in) Chitrangada Choudhury (chitrangada@csds.in) is a multimedia journalist and researcher, and currently with the Publics and Policies program at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, New Delhi. Among the worst excesses committed in India's six decade-old democracy, the forcible displacment...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: UPA is going to town for having delivered on its promise of food security. But, come December and this promise would fall flat as many government schools are likely to go without midday meal (MDM). The reason: the food ministry's new missive to the HRD ministry that like other food schemes, MDM would also have to make pre-payment before lifting foodgrains from Food Corporation of India...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: As many as nine central government departments, including the railways and the ministries of finance, commerce and petroleum, could be in the dock for flouting employment laws governing contract workers. The Central Labour Commissioner has sought compliance reports for contract workers deployed in several ministries, including the commissioner's own office in the labour ministry, which uses the services of 20 contract employees via a private software firm. The...