-The Indian Express Unfinished car shells rusting in a deserted factory in India's West Bengal state lie testimony to flaws in a century-old land-acquisition law the government now wants to replace. * Jobs, housing, cash to landowners made mandatory * Costs, project delays to increase - Indian corporates react * Bill to push up costs by 350 pct for big plots - analysts, cos * Bill likely to be passed in December Tata Motors was forced...

-The Times of India   Claiming that the Gopalgarh incident which claimed nine lives was not a communal riot, the fact finding team of Muslim Forum on Wednesday said it happened due to the total failure of the state government and demanded stepping down of chief minister Ashok Gehlot and home minister Shanti Dhariwal. The Muslim Forum, a joint organization of all the Muslim organizations of the state, lashed out at the Ashok...

-The Hindu   Even as the death toll in last week's clash at Gopalgarh went up to nine, the deadlock over the post-mortem on five of the victims of violence in the eastern Rajasthan town ended on Wednesday with their close relatives agreeing to the autopsies with videography in the presence of distinguished persons. A five-member team of doctors from Sawai Man Singh Hospital here started the autopsies at the Bharatpur Government Hospital...

Union rural development minister Jairam Ramesh has called for removal of ceilings on poverty estimation, which restrict the number of poor who can claim benefits from government schemes. His ministry is currently conducting a decennial (once in 10 years) census of the country's rural poor and a similar exercise will be launched for the first time in urban areas soon. But what is becoming a political issue is the planning commission's acceptance of...

The Planning Commission’s new definition of poverty widely criticised as being unrealistic has caused disquiet in the UPA, with Congress leaders privately dubbing the benchmarks insensitive and ally NCP publicly slamming them as an “insult to the poor”. Congress leaders believe the figures, under which anyone spending more than Rs 32 a day in urban areas and Rs 26 in villages will not be considered poor and hence will not be...