-PTI Ahmedabad: Gujarat government issued a notification in Ahmedabad on making voting compulsory for people of the state during elections to local self governing bodies. Incidentally, the bill was introduced when Prime Minister Narendra Modi was Chief Minister of Gujarat. The notification would mean that people have to compulsorily vote from now onwards during elections held for municipal corporations, municipalities, and all village panchayats. The Act has also made provisions to penalise those who...

-The Hindu Business Line New Delhi: Even as a Joint Parliamentary panel is looking into the controversial Land Bill, which seeks to replace the Land Act of 2013, the National Democratic Alliance is considering diluting the controversial consent clause and offering more clarity on compensation to farmers to make the piece of legislation more acceptable. A highly-placed source told BusinessLine that “an important element of the strategy is to get the report...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Various ministries — led by health, agriculture and human resource development — have released close to Rs 44,000 crore over the past few years without getting utilization certificates or accounts of grants given to statutory bodies and organizations, resulting in spending without any evidence of gains flowing to the beneficiaries. The concern has been flagged by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) in a new report...

-Business Standard The Subramanian report had been panned by environmentalists and tribal rights groups for seeking dilution of existing safeguards in the name of reforms The report of the Subramanian committee to revise environment laws should be scrapped and the issue looked at afresh, Parliament’s standing committee on the sector has recommended. The committee, headed by Ashwani Kumar, a Rajya Sabha member from the Congress party and an ex-Union minister, gave its...

-The Times of India As crops fail, banks don't deliver and the government falters, Mandya's farmers find themselves at the mercy of unscrupulous moneylenders Chenne Gowda has a Rs. 4 lakh albatross around his neck. The 55-year-old sugarcane farmer from Chikka maralli village in pan davapura taluk, Mandya district, took the loan from private moneylenders but has no idea how he'll repay. His crop, on two acres, is wilting in the field...