The government, the largest owner of landed property in the country, is preparing a comprehensive land sale policy to raise revenues and check corruption in government-owned property deals. The finance ministry will shortly move a cabinet note for bringing in a new uniform policy on 'land alienation' by government agencies, with an eye on removing discretionary powers of individual ministers and bureaucrats, said a government official. In big cities, large tracts...

-The Telegraph The Union health ministry plans to initiate a process to make tuberculosis a notifiable disease, compelling all private doctors nationwide to keep local health authorities informed about their TB patients. A senior health official said the notification would mean private practitioners would have to inform health authorities about patients who show up with symptoms for the first time and patients treated earlier who may have developed drug-resistant TB. “This is not...

Seventy-eight lakh trees will be chopped as part of the forest clearance process for the 1,500MW Tipaimukh hydroelectric project in Manipur, an exercise that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh says will be taken up for “national interest”. The project, which has been in the eye of controversies following opposition from Bangladesh, has received support from the Centre, which has promised not to take any steps that would adversely affect the neighbouring...

Foreign direct investment in education has been stuttering in India more than a decade after it was allowed, apparently because education is a not-for-profit sector where surplus revenue has to be ploughed back into expanding the institution. India’s education sector has witnessed significant expansion since the government approved FDI in April 2000, thus providing a huge opportunity for investment. Yet FDI remained zero in the first three years, increased till 2008-09...

A parliamentary committee is set to reject the National Identification Authority of India Bill 2010, inflicting a severe blow to Unique Identification Authority of India chairman Nandan Nilekani and raising doubts about Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's pet project. Former IT czar Nilekani, who holds cabinet minister rank as UIDAI chief, had been keen on the enactment of the Bill so that a statutory National Identification Authority could be established. The Bill,...