-PTI   A desperate government's efforts failed today to achieve any breakthrough with Baba Ramdev deciding to go ahead with his indefinite fast here from tomorrow amidst indications that a compromise was likely in a day or two. For nearly five hours, two senior union ministers Kapil Sibal and Subodh Kant Sahay negotiated with the yoga guru over his demands on eradication of corruption at a posh hotel, a venue totally different...

The rural development ministry has proposed that farmers should get 80% of the profits from resale of land bought from them for development, much higher than that suggested by a Sonia Gandhi-led panel. The National Advisory Council had pegged the compensation after resale at 25% of the profits made by private developers. The proposal, aimed at giving farmland owners a better deal, follows protests in Uttar Pradesh's Greater Noida last month over...

The 117-year-old Land Acquisition Act cries out for reform, but there is resistance to introducing positive changes. The Land Acquisition (Amendment) Bill, which seeks to amend the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, has had a long period of gestation. The Union Ministry of Rural Development initiated the process of amendment way back in October 1998. But it took around 10 years for the government to bring the Bill before Parliament. The 1894...

Governments can acquire land for “public purpose” while making sure that the displaced are compensated, relocated and rehabilitated. THE violent conflict over land acquisition in Uttar Pradesh and the persisting resistance to land acquisition for the Posco project in Jagatsinghpur district of Orissa are merely recent instances that exemplify the growing stand-off between the Indian state and its people centred on land. On the one side are governments (both Central...

-The Economic Times   Dear Smt Gandhi, We, a group of academic economists, are writing to you about the proposed National Food Security (NFS) Act legislation that is of profound importance to India's economy. We believe that it is appropriate that India pursues the goal of genuine food security for all through a law that guarantees a minimum transfer to every adult except a small subset of the most affluent who...