-Frontline Riding roughshod over farmers' concerns, the Gujarat government notifies a project to develop the Mandal-Becharaji Special Investment Region, an industrial hub spread over 50,884 hectares, affecting 44 villages. But the villagers see it as a real estate scam and are determined to resist it. GUJARAT may soon have several new townships. The Narendra Modi-led government has proposed to set up 13 special investment regions (SIRs), which are essentially industrial hubs...

-Economic and Political Weekly The government has notified a Draft Land Reforms Policy which, on paper, has all the requisites of an earnest programme. Yet, the near total failure of earlier efforts at land reforms in India leave little room for hope that something substantial will at last be done to combat landlessness. Harsh Mander (manderharsh@gmail.com) is with the Centre for Equity Studies, New Delhi, and works with survivors of mass violence,...

-Down to Earth Our policy makers should move away from the income criterion for estimating poverty and take cognisance of other indicators Amid mounting criticism and heated debates about the poverty line, a challenge has resurfaced to examine whether there could be a single non-monetary criterion of estimating poverty. A poverty line is a monetary cut-off point below which a person is deemed to be poor. Thus, any attempt to measure poverty...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Accepting the argument of political parties that poll promises or "freebies" are related to the Directive Principles of State Policy, the Election Commission is considering a pragmatic set of guidelines that would allow freebies as long as they are targeted at the economically and socially weaker sections, religious minorities, women and populations living in remote, border or insurgency/disaster-hit areas. Directive principles are broad policy guidelines considered...

The poor man’s rich grain is getting richer – a new study published in the Journal of Nutrition shows that a variety of new pearl millet (more commonly known as bajra), which was conventionally bred to be 10% richer in iron helped iron-deficient children under the age of 3 years, to absorb enough of this crucial mineral to meet their physiological requirements. (See links below for full text and a...