India Inc. was aghast at the recent report of a parliamentary committee that recommended that a new draft land acquisition law limit occasions when the government may intervene to acquire land for use by private firms. But in a paper published in the Economic and Political Weekly last month, Delhi University economics professor Ram Singh laid out data that supports the committee’s recommendations. Mr. Singh argues that government-driven land acquisition is generally...

-The Telegraph The government today admitted that almost 95 per cent of the job to repair Aila-ravaged embankments in the Sunderbans was unfinished because of land-related problems, a lapse that will leave seven lakh families living in South and North 24-Parganas vulnerable to floods during the monsoon. The government was supposed to build 263km of concrete embankments by March this year but managed only 14km, primarily because of problems over land acquisition,...

-The Indian Express Jairam Ramesh’s criticism of NREGA highlights that a rights-based approach to poverty reduction cannot work without improving implementation The clamour for the right to social pensions is another attempt to deal with the Indian state’s inability to provide adequate social protection to its poorest citizens through targeted programmes. India’s vulnerable continue to be excluded from social safety nets. The multi-layered problems with social welfare schemes can be summarised in...

Araria, Bihar: If the government had bought bicycles to give them to schoolgirls, you would have had a bicycle scam in Bihar, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar famously said, explaining why he gave bicycle vouchers to families. But when it came to giving land to landless Mahadalit families — the poorest and most marginalised of Dalits — the government forgot this wisdom.   Result: Allegedly acting in concert, government officials and brokers ganged...

The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has decided to send an additional 4,000 paramilitary personnel to Chhattisgarh, to strengthen anti-Naxal operations being carried out jointly by the Centre and the State government. The move follows Union Home Secretary R. K. Singh's visit to the state capital, Raipur, on Tuesday. It is learnt that the State government urged Mr. Singh to augment central paramilitary personnel in one of the worst Naxal-affected states....