-The Hindu There was a last-minute hiccup in the passage of the Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill in the Lok Sabha on Thursday when the Trinamool Congress demanded that the clause mandating private projects to take the consent of 80 per cent of landowners be changed to 100 per cent, as is prevalent in West Bengal. The State, Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh said, could change this provision, but...

-The Hindu The long-pending Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill was passed by the Lok Sabha on Thursday night after Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh assured the House that the measure allowed enough room for State governments to implement it as per their requirements. The Bill is only setting a bottom line for fair compensation, rehabilitation and resettlement in the case of land acquisition and State governments were free to further...

-PTI The Government will kick-start a number of new infrastructure projects including 8 new airports and two new sea-ports in the coming months to boost sluggish economic growth, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Thursday. With economic growth slowing to a decade low of 5 per cent, the Congress-led UPA government has further opened the economy to foreign direct investment and now wants to use investments for returning to high growth...

-The Economics Times NEW DELHI: The government plans to give a fresh impetus to public-private partnership by overhauling the framework for such projects on the basis of a study being undertaken by the Planning Commission, which is likely to submit its recommendations within a month. The move comes after a few big PPP projects in infrastructure sector fell apart while those in the power sector have been struggling to sail through. "We...

-PTI New Delhi: Maoist violence in some districts of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha and Bihar has impeded the progress of rural electrification, the Centre admitted in the Lok Sabha today. Power Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said while progress of rural electrification work in the country under Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojna (rural electrification scheme) is "generally satisfactory, the progress in some states is "comparatively slow" due to law and order and Maoist violence, and...