August is usually the preferred month for family holidays in Europe, because of abundant sunshine and warm weather. In India, normally, this is the south-west monsoon season and a busy period for farmers. This year, however, several farm families in coastal Andhra Pradesh, the rice bowl of the country, are reported to have declared ‘crop holiday’. This is because the rice mills have not been lifting even last years’ crop....
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The land law and justice by Nitin Desai
The ever-energetic Jairam Ramesh has unveiled a new land acquisition policy for discussion. He has taken on the difficult task of changing an old law whose implementation has led to a sorry mess in Nandigram, Singur and Noida, to mention only a few of the recent cases that have hit the headlines. India’s policy regime for managing land rights and land transactions is totally dysfunctional. Greedy politicians in state governments have...
More »Loopholes in the Land Bill by Manoj Pant
• Without a clear definition of ‘public purpose’, the land acquisition bill is meaningless • The bill’s definition of ‘fertile land’ can potentially harm the agriculture sector • Government’s role in defining land will create economic and political problems in future As Parliament debates this month it will, hopefully, move beyond issues of corruption in high places to important economic legislation. Two such pieces of legislation are the land acquisition bill and...
More »Ways Of Owning, Ways Of Belonging by Neha Bhatt
Why we are doing this story * Tribal lands are under pressure across India. In Orissa, they have been holding out against big corporates like Vedanta and Posco. *** From afar, the fumes rising from factory chimneys in Gujarat’s industrial belt make them seem like skyscrapers on fire. It’s a grey rust-and-chemicals stretch that they call, without irony, the Golden Corridor. It extends all the way from the north of Ahmedabad, through...
More »Food Bill will be tabled in winter session: KV Thomas
-The Economic Times The Right to Food Bill, which proposes to give more subsidised grains to the poor, would be introduced only in the winter session of Parliament as consultations with states was taking longer than expected, Food Minister KV Thomas said on Wednesday. The draft bill, approved by the empowered group of ministers, is currently being processed in the law ministry. It was expected to be introduced in the monsoon...
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