-The Hindu The government's reasoning that the land ordinance was meant to extend the benefit of the new law to various types of land acquisitions left uncovered so far is disingenuous Democracy is an exercise in public reason. Democratically elected governments cannot simply throw around the weight of their majority. They have a responsibility to offer good reasons for their decisions. And they must do so publicly. That is why we follow...

-The Times of India MEERUT: Forgotten by most and out in the cold, quite literally, 25 people have died of chill this winter in the Muzaffarnagar camps that continue to house a little over 3,500 riot refugees. TOI visited Muzaffarnagar - Shamli has another 700 refugees - over two days, tabulating a list of the dead and the dates on which they had died, and found that even after they breathed their...

-The Pioneer Earlier, due to poor electricity supply in Jharkhand, farmers were unable to store vegetables, thereby incurring losses. Now, with the introduction of ‘desi fridges' that do not require external energy, they can get themselves a better deal, writes Aakriti Shrivastava Sanjay Singh, a smallholder farmer is market savvy. He claims to produce the best quality vegetables in his village, Madanpur, in Jharkhand. He sells his vegetables in a nearby...

-Down to Earth National Optic Fibre Network will connect all 250,000 gram panchayats of India by 2016 India's first high-speed rural broadband network, the National Optic Fibre Network (NOFN), was commissioned in Kerala's Idukki district on Monday. With this, the district, which has a large tribal and rural population, has become the country's first district to have all its village panchayats connected to NOFN, the world's largest rural broadband connectivity project through...

-Business Standard The ordinance has returned near absolute power of discretion in land acquisition, except in tribal areas, into the hands of the bureaucracy yet again Even after the National Democratic Alliance's land ordinance, governments will still need the consent of tribal gram sabhas in all Schedule V and VI areas of the country before acquiring land for themselves or for public-private projects. While the land ordinance has done away with the need...