-Live Mint Panel recommends consent of 80% of land owners; key ministers say it would lead to unreasonable delays  Land acquisition for public-private partnership projects (PPP) will become tougher if the government accepts the recommendation of the group of ministers (GoM) and includes it in the new land Bill that it proposes to move in the upcoming winter session of Parliament. The ministerial body has recommended that the consent of 80% of farmers...

-New Yorker A couple of weeks ago, Munich Re, one of the world’s largest reinsurance firms, issued a study titled “Severe Weather in North America.” According to the press release that accompanied the report, “Nowhere in the world is the rising number of natural catastrophes more evident than in North America.” The number of what Munich Re refers to as “weather-related loss events,” and what the rest of us would probably...

-Outlook Delhi Police fared the worst when it came to complaints against the men in khaki for alleged irregularities last year, while their Uttar Pradesh counterparts came a close second. Out of 61,765 complaints filed against cops across India, 22 per cent (12,805 cases) were registered in Delhi, a report prepared by the National Crime Records Bureau said. Uttar Pradesh came second with 19.4 per cent (11,971 cases) complaints registered, while Madhya Pradesh...

-Rediff.com India has the emerged as the world's largest rice exporter in 2012 beating its Asian counterpart Thailand with shipment of 9.75 million tonnes, according to United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA's) latest report. Thailand was the top rice exporter with exports of 10.65 million tonnes in 2011. However, its volume slipped to 6.5 million tonnes in 2012. "On the export side, India's [ Images ] exports were raised 1.75 million tonnes to...

-Outlook Former Chief Election Commissioner S Y Quraishi has proposed mandatory annual audit of funds and donations received by political parties. "We want all political funding should be transparent and checked. There should be annual compulsory audits by an independent auditor to be picked up from a panel suggested by the Election Commission," Quraishi told PTI. He said the report of such audit should be put in the public domain. "Everybody will be able...