The India-EU summit scheduled in New Delhi next week will lay down a 'strict' road-map for conclusion of the ambitious bilateral free trade pact and also strengthen cooperation in security. Commerce and industry minister Anand Sharma briefed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday on the progress made in the FTA negotiations and the areas that still need to be sorted out.  "The PM was briefed on the status of the India-EU...

-The United Nations   India is receiving a loan of nearly $90 million from the United Nations to improve agricultural livelihoods in the small north-western state of Uttarakhand, one of the poorest areas in the country. The money, resulting from an agreement signed today between the Government and the UN International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), will go towards the Integrated Livelihoods Support Project, which aims to support and develop the food production...

-BBC   A university in western India has postponed a seminar on Kashmir after Hindu groups objected to its "anti-nationalist" programme. The Symbiosis University in the city of Pune also cancelled the screening of a controversial film on the Indian army's role in Kashmir. University authorities say they will "revisit and rethink" the seminar programme to make it "more balanced". Kashmir is divided into Pakistani- and Indian-administered areas. Both nations claiming the region in its entirety....

-The Hindu It will make land acquisition more difficult for private players The Union government proposes to take yet another shot at the crucial land reforms agenda in a bid to help the rural poor affected by a host of land issues and inflation. Having introduced the Land Acquisition and Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill in Parliament, Minister of Rural Development Jairam Ramesh, who also holds the Department of Land Resources, aims to address...

Not only are the Forest Rights Act and the Panchayats Extension to Scheduled Areas Act routinely violated in Chhattisgarh, the adivasis are also short-changed on legislative representation and reservations in government jobs. As the state cedes land to capital while reducing the adivasis to an ornamental presence, there is increasing assertion of adivasi identity, born out of class predicaments and experiences of displacement as much as notions of indigeneity. Supriya Sharma...