-The Hindu The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) is set to take place on June 20 at Rio de Janeiro, 20 years after the 1992 Earth Summit on Environment & Development. World leaders, experts, and U.N. agencies are expected to take stock and reaffirm global commitment to sustainable development. The summit is taking place against the backdrop of threats of catastrophic climate change, unprecedented environmental degradation and widespread market...

Revised draft water policy allows for subsidy to the poor and in non-commercial farming Public outcry against indiscriminate pricing of water and privatisation of water delivery services has forced the Centre to back off on both counts in its revised draft of the new national water policy, a copy of which is available with The Hindu . The revised draft, that incorporates suggestions from the public as well as state governments, allows...

A parliamentary panel has cited the practice in developed countries to reject a key provision in the land acquisition bill allowing the government to acquire plots for private companies. The committee said in the US, Japan and Canada, land is purchased by private enterprises, not acquired by the state. Why should India continue this “anomalous practice”, asked the parliamentary standing committee on rural development in its report on the Land Acquisition,...

A parliamentary panel has sought to put strict safeguards on the government’s powers to acquire land and recommended that no plot under cultivation be taken away unless as a last resort. The recommendation — one of many on the Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill, 2011 — seeks to give a leg-up to food security, but if accepted, could pose a challenge to the expansion of industries. “The concept of food security...

-The Telegraph Mamata Banerjee’s suggestion that the government should keep away from land acquisition for private industry has got the backing of a parliamentary standing committee, which has suggested that private enterprises buy plots on their own. The National Land Acquisition and Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill, which was introduced in Parliament last year by rural development minister Jairam Ramesh, had laid down that the government could acquire land only for a “public...