tung by farmers’ protest over land acquisition for the ongoing Yamuna Expressway project in western Uttar Pradesh, the state government today announced a new policy for land acquisition and rehabilitation of land owners. The policy promises sops, including equity share in the development projects, for land owners. Land acquisition hurdles have put brakes on several ambitious projects of the state government, including the Yamuna Expressway, international airport in Kushinagar district and Lucknow...

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The State government will seek a review of the Supreme Court order restricting distribution of foodgrains under the public distribution system (PDS) to families living below the poverty line. Speaking to the Media after a meeting of the Cabinet on Thursday, Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan said that besides filing a review petition before the court, Kerala would ask the Centre to take measures for retaining the statutory universal rationing system....

The Italian-born English poet Humbert Wolfe described the press of his day in the following terms: ''You cannot hope to bribe or twist, Thank God! The British journalist. But seeing what the man will do Unbribed, there’s no occasion to.'' Things have only got worse in this matter in the eighty-odd years since these words were written, and they have probably got worse in many more places. And so the age-old dilemma between freedom of...

The Empowered Group of Ministers (EGOM) on food will meet tomorrow to discuss ways of implementing the Supreme Court order to distribute foodgrain ''free'' to the poor instead of letting it rot. "The EGOM on food is meeting tomorrow," Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee told reporters on the sidelines of an insurance summit organised by Assocham in Mumbai. The EGOM will discuss various issues related to foodgrain stock including the Supreme Court''s...

The ubiquitousness of the mobile phone in urban areas and its spread in rural areas in India seem to have fed a notion — not substantiated by hard evidence — that there is a wide and deep market for such services in the countryside. Such a notion has remained largely unverified because of the scarcity of data on the extent of ownership of assets and access to services such as...