-Business Standard The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government's land ordinance, approved by the President on Wednesday, has made several amendments to the original law rather quietly. Changes in the retrospective clause of the Bill are important but did not attract enough attention when the ordinance was approved by the Cabinet. In the original 2013 law, if compensation had not been paid for over five years to landowners or the land had not been...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Narendra Modi government may introduce a health cess to fund free health care services and launch seven preventive campaigns to curb illnesses under a draft health policy unveiled today. Some analysts, however, said the draft of the National Health Policy 2015 lacked emphasis on regulating India's private health industry, necessary to curb the high cost of health care. The draft says the government has the "political will" to...

-The Hindu In the name of economic reforms and development, the government has taken a significant step backward in India's march to land justice. The pushing through of the Land Act ordinance violates all democratic norms On Monday, the Bharatiya Janata Party government cleared the proposed ordinance to amend the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act 2013. This amendment, insofar as has been made known...

-Business Standard The changes in the ordinance have been made after taking inputs from states suggesting changes to the Act which would make it more industry-friendly. After a failed winter session of Parliament, the government recommended promulgating an ordinance for changes to the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013. Justifying the use of ordinance, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the government had to...

-The Indian Express In a bid to ease the process of acquiring land, the Union Cabinet on Monday recommended the promulgation of an ordinance to amend the Land Acquisiton Act, 2013, by including five new categories of projects that would not require prior consent from affected families as well as Social Impact Assessment (SIA). These include projects related to defence, rural infrastructure and industrial corridors. The sensitive provisions relating to compensation, relief...