SEZs account for just about a third of India's merchandise exports (and roughly the same proportion of services exports). Yet, the notion of creating global manufacturing centres of the kind that propelled China to superpowerdom retains a durable appeal within the Indian policy-making establishment, notes Kanika Datta.
Ahead of the Parliament session, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday reached out to parties appealing them not to come in the way of prosperity of farmers, saying the deadlock over the land acquisition bill is seriously impacting rural development.
The new Land Acquisition Act, which he hoped to notify by January 1, 2014, does not have under its purview 13 different acts, which dealt with land acquisition for various government projects, including the national highways, power transmission and railways.
Though a pyrrhic victory for the BJP, the party he chose to align himself against his former mentor Banerjee, it nevertheless is being seen as a morale booster for the saffron party as his former party, the Trinamool Congress under Banerjee's leadership, has garnered an overwhelming 213 seats out of 292 seats which went to polls.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday laid the foundation stone for the Noida International Airport at Jewar in Uttar Pradesh. It will be one of the largest aerodromes in Asia.
The Centre will release Rs 95,082 crore as tax devolution to the states this month after including one advance instalment to help them push their capital expenditure, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Monday. After a meeting with all chief ministers and state finance ministers, Sitharaman said states had said that it would be helpful for them if the tax devolution is front loaded.
As many as 449 infrastructure projects, each worth Rs 150 crore or more, have been hit by cost overruns totalling more than Rs 4.29 lakh crore, according to a report. The ministry of statistics and programme implementation monitors infrastructure projects worth Rs 150 crore and above. Of the 1,736 such projects, 449 reported cost overruns and 547 were delayed.
Why is the government ignoring the advice of its own Economic Survey?
The evicted families of Dhalpur villages in Gorukuti will not, however, be paid any compensation as they are "encroachers", the government said in an affidavit to Gauhati High Court in response to a PIL filed by the Leader of the Opposition Debabrata Saikia.
'The TMC did not bother telling me, a sitting MLA for 20 years, why I was not being given a ticket.'
If 2019-20 (FY20) was an unusual year for highway construction in India, with the pace of work slowing down for the first time since the Narendra Modi government assumed power in 2014, largely due to the general elections in May and liquidity crunch, the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020-21 (FY21) only made matters worse with lockdowns and labour unavailability. The pace of highway construction in 2021-22 (FY22) has not been able to bulldoze the pandemic barriers in a year marred by two Covid-19 waves - the second at the start of the fiscal year, the third towards the close. With localised lockdowns and restrictions on mobility, highway construction growth in the country has now fallen to a five-year low.
Speaking during the Question Hour, the road transport and highways minister said the country has set several world records in road construction despite COVID-19. The construction of Zoji La tunnel on the Srinagar-Leh highway will be completed before 2024, while another Z-Morh tunnel will be completed in the next three months, he added.
While going back to the old bill is only a face saver, there is little in the bill that will excite industry or the markets, says Shishir Asthana.
The government will use the Supreme Court order calling the 2005 deal between ISRO's commercial arm Antrix and privately-owned Devas Multimedia a fraud, to counter seizure of its properties, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Tuesday as she launched a blistering attack on the Congress for handing over airwaves used by the defence to the private firm for pittance. "It is a fraud of Congress, by Congress (and) for Congress," the minister told reporters as she read out paragraphs from the Supreme Court's January 17 decision allowing winding up of Devas Multimedia because of the fraud.
Social activist Anna Hazare on Saturday said he has decided to suspend his agitation scheduled on October 2 in New Delhi as the Central government allowed the Land Ordinance to lapse and implemented the One Rank One Pension OROP) for ex-servicemen.
Facing stiff resistance on the Land Acquisition Bill, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced that the government will not re-promulgate the Ordinance which expires on Monday and declared readiness to accept any suggestions to benefit the farmers in the pending bill on it.
The farmers' agitation, spread over months, had halted construction and delayed supply of thousands of residential units.
The opposition in Lok Sabha on Monday tore into the controversial Land Acquisition Bill
Land acquisition costs have gone up to almost 50% of total project cost.
Road construction witnessed a near 60 per cent year-on-year jump in the first two months of financial year 2021-22 (FY22), despite restrictions being imposed in the wake of the second wave of Covid-19. Around 1,470 km of roads were constructed during the first two months of the current fiscal, as against 847 km in the corresponding period last year, according to official figures. However, these are provisional numbers as the state public works departments of Maharashtra and Goa are yet to provide data.
As even bigger road construction players are not willing to bet on BOT projects., NHAI will have to rethink its thrust on the BOT model.
According to a confidential government paper seen by Reuters, several states want to do away with obtaining landowners' consent altogether in some cases and to cut through red tape which they say holds up development.
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The anger against land acquisition is not only among landowners.
Banerjee, who is pitted against former lieutenant and Bharatiya Janata Party candidate Suvendu Adhikari in Nandigram seat, said that farmers are the pride of West Bengal and the state government is working tirelessly for their development.
Branding Trinamool Congress rebels as 'traitors' like Mir Jafar, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday took a swipe at the Bharatiya Janata Party for fielding the turncoats in the polls leaving saffron party old-timers shed tears.
Government agreed to a key demand of the BJP, which had suggested that instead of acquisition, the land could be leased to developers so that its ownership will remain with the farmers and would provide them with regular annual income.
Coal, land, insurance bills are cited as govt's commitment to reforms.
Gandhi will miss the party's march against the land bill in UP.
'We will be hoisting the tiranga, but this kind of celebration is uncalled for when the farmers in this country are dying by suicides, their families are ravaged by poverty and farmers are not enjoying any freedom.'
About 250 acres of land had been acquired during four days of acquisition drive undertaken last month.
Land acquisition issues & costs a big query; Cidco wants these fully addressed before calling preliminary bids.
A series of mega projects that have faced bottlenecks and which the Cabinet Committee on Investments has to clear.
The finance minister is out attracting investment in the country but in absence of a land acquisition policy; foreign investment will continue to suffer as it did in case of Posco and Vedanta.
"I say I am a 'big donkey' (Ami ekta boro gadha) for having failed to recognise them. I dont know (about it), but people say their 'empire' is worth Rs 5,000 crore and they will use money to buy votes. But don't vote for them," Banerjee told the rally.
In spite of some initial hiccups due to problems in land acquisition, the real estate projects by Unitech in West Bengal were now on track. After facing delays due to problems in land acquisition, work at the proposed logistics hub on Kona Expressway had started.
Joyita Ghose on the land acquisition laws in the country and the changes that the NDA government's controversial bill in Parliament makes to the land acquisition act, 2013 brought in by the United Progressive Alliance government.
In a ruling which can have far-reaching consequences, the Supreme Court on Wednesday set aside the controversial acquisition of 997.11 acres of land in Singur in 2006 by the then Left Front government in West Bengal to set up Tata Motors' ambitious Nano car manufacturing plant.
'An international survey has shown that India figures high in the list of countries on people's approval of torture.' 'What is surprising is that even if you look at the many vibrant social movements we've had, there's been no campaign that predominantly focuses on police torture.'
Ruling Trinamool Congress on Friday staged protest rallies in West Bengal and burnt symbolic copies of the Centre's land ordinance, which it has described as 'black'.
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