The Centre could bring in a mechanism to stop entities from acquiring land beyond the project requirement, a practice which is at the heart of corruption and anger among landowners as seen in western UP. An amendment to the Land Acquisition Act could cap the maximum land to be acquired for different categories of projects or could install a process to check the feasibility of the demand for land. Acquisitions...

The current perception that cash transfers can replace public provision of basic goods and services and become a catch-all solution for poverty reduction is false. Where cash transfers have helped to reduce poverty, they have added to public provision, not replaced it. For crucial items like food, direct provision protects poor consumers from rising prices and is part of a broader strategy to ensure domestic supply. Problems like targeting errors...

Cash transfers are now suggested by many as a silver bullet for addressing the problems that plague India’s anti-poverty programmes. This article argues instead for evidence-based policy and informed public debate to clarify the place, prospects and problems of cash transfers in India. By drawing on key empirical findings from academic and grey literature across the world an attempt is made to draw attention to three aspects of cash transfers...

A state government announces it is going to acquire land for 'public purpose'. The public purpose is to hand over the land to a specific private company. It decides to do so through one of its corporations claiming there is urgency &NDAsh; which helps override any legal objections from the landowners. Everyone in the region and the state government knows who the land is intended for &NDAsh; Posco -- but...

-The Guardian   Published by the Institute for Economics & Peace, Global Peace Index 2011 reveals that the world had become less peaceful for the third year in a row. The index emphasises that terrorism continues to be a threat for global peace. The Global Peace Index, is out and sees dramatic falls in middle east countries after the Arab spring - and unexpected rises in others. Published by the Institute for Economics...