-Kafila.org This fact-finding exercise was coordinated by the CENTRE FOR POLICY ANALYSIS. Team members were the human rights activist and former civil servant Harsh Mander; former Director-General of the Border Security Force, E N Rammohan; Professor Kamal Mitra Chenoy of Jawaharlal Nehru University; National Integration Council member John Dayal; senior journalist Sukumar Muralidharan and CPA Director and senior editor Seema Mustafa. Introduction and Overview The first impression of the Muzaffarnagar countryside, now green...

-Frontline Interview with Jairam Ramesh, Union Minister for Rural Development. THE passage of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill, 2013, is being perceived as a major achievement by the United Progressive Alliance government. The Bill that has replaced the colonial Land Acquisition Act, 1894, went through several changes in order to arrive at a middle path, a term coined by Union Minister for...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Western Ghats may be in danger again. This time from a "drinking water" supply project. Yettinahole diversion project located in the ecologically sensitive zone as per the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel involves 8 dams inside the forests, 250kms long canals, 80kms and 50kms long raising mains, a reservoir that will submerge 1200 hectares of land and 2 villages according to a recent assessment by...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court admonished the government for failing to set up an independent environmental regulator, which the prime minister promised to set up in 2011. The court has asked the environment ministry, which currently has all regulatory powers, to give an explanation in four weeks. "You want to retain all power with the ministry (of environment and forests). You should think of yourself as a policy-making ministry,...

-Outlook The path-breaking Land Acquisition Bill was today one step short of becoming a law with Parliament giving its approval to it. Lok Sabha passed the amended version of the legislation, which seeks to provide fair and just compensation to farmers and to those who lose livelihood on account of acquisition. The bill, which was earlier passed by Lok Sabha last week, went through some amendments during its passage in the Rajya Sabha...