-The Telegraph Tata Motors has “abandoned” the Singur project, according to the draft of a state government bill that seeks to take over the entire land leased out to the company and prospective vendors. If the Singur Land Rehabilitation and Development Bill, 2011, gets passed in the Assembly without any changes to the draft, it will be a matter of official record that the project has “in fact been abandoned by the...

Whether it is in education, health or jobs, there are enormous differences in outcomes in modern India, so much so that it often seems like two countries exist within one. Economic opportunities have undoubtedly expanded for a section of India's population, but there are serious obstacles in the path of many. Nobel laureate and development economist Amartya Sen has written about the 'conversion handicap' which, quite separately from an 'earnings...

The Congress-led government last week exempted CBI from providing information sought under the Right to Information (RTI) Act. The move has not gone down well with civil society activists who are not only terming the move as “illegal” but are also thinking of challenging it. “It is not only wrong but also illegal. It’s written in the RTI act that only intelligence or security agencies can be exempted but CBI is...

During a meeting between Union Food Minister K V Thomas and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar on Tuesday, apprehensions were reportedly expressed regarding the National Advisory Council (NAC) coming out with its own version of the food security Bill. The government has been in the process of drafting the proposed Bill based on the recommendations of Sonia Gandhi-led NAC. While the meeting was essentially a consultation between the two ministers over various...

-PTI   The food ministry plans to augment wheat and rice procurement by 10 million tonnes to meet the expected demand for 70 million tonnes of foodgrain under the proposed National Food security Act . "We have to increase the foodgrain procurement to 70 million tonnes in order to meet the requirement under the proposed bill," according to a senior official. The government buys around 60 million tonnes of wheat and...