Hitting the streets against the controversial land bill, Congress on Tuesday accused the Narendra Modi government of being "anti-farmer" and "pro-corporate" and vowed to take the battle across the country but both Sonia and Rahul Gandhi were conspicuous by their absence.
New Land Bill is aimed at reviving investment climate.
Hitting out at the bill, he termed it as an attempt by the government to acquire land, whose price has been rising, for industrialist 'friends'and crony capitalists.
The rally, organised by Kisan Uday Abhiyan, led by Manveer Teotia, included farmers from Gautam Buddh Nagar, Ghaziabad, Aligarh and Meerut.
'The Mumbai-Goa highway touches 66 tourism spots in Maharashtra's Konkan. It will give development a high boost. It will also ensure quick transportation of fruits and other produce the region is famous for.'
The BJP-led government is keen to to get the land bill passed by March.
In a significant move, the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) has accorded approval for the procurement of more than 200 BrahMos supersonic cruise missiles and associated equipment for the Indian Navy at a cost of around Rs 19,000 crore, people familiar with the matter said on Thursday.
'The BJP's numbers in this government are almost the same as those enjoyed by the Congress under P V Narasimha Rao when the reform process was kicked off in 1991.' 'As before, the only constraints on the prime minister's actions are internal, not external.' 'They come from his own assessment of the political consequences of any action,' points out Mihir S Sharma.
Thus, the right to fair compensation and transparency in land acquisition, rehabilitation and resettlement (amendment) bill, 2015 as passed by the Lok Sabha still contains major lacuna's in regard to farmer's rights. It is best advised and hoped that the government will send the bill to the parliamentary standing committee for more changes and consultation.
A group of 91 retired bureaucrats has appealed to the Centre to withdraw the Green Credits programme, which they claimed may facilitate diversion of forest land to private entities. "Quick, smooth and easy diversion of our forest lands in favour of user agencies is apparently the sole intention of this set of Green Credits rules. "We urge the MOEFCC to recognise this danger and withdraw the Green Credits notification expeditiously," the group of former civil servants wrote in an open letter to the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC).
While farmers in Gujarat are rejecting the compensation package, farmers in Maharashtra say they do not wish to part with their land for a project that largely benefits Gujarat.
The farmers also marched along the ambulance and demanded action against those who are responsible for his death.
Maybe Modi could ask a patriarch of the stature of the late G D Birla to flesh out the details of a new company to manage government land privatisation.
The bill is unlikely to have a smooth passage in the committee with the Congress party making it clear that "there is no compromise on the land bill."
The Vishwaguru who addressed the maximum rallies and boasted of being blessed with divine energy, who promised guarantees in his own name, turned out finally not invincible, points out Jyoti Punwani.
Farmers protesting to press the Centre for their various demands will stay put at the two protest sites on the Punjab-Haryana border till February 29 when the next course of action will be decided, their leader Sarwan Singh Pandher said on Friday.
There were certainly qualities adhering to the Tata Group, which emanated from the persona of Ratan Tata. Most notable of these would be the low profile he maintained, which sharply contrasted the in-your-face celebrity status, celebration of wealth and pursuit of importance many of liberalised India's rich, love, notes Shyam G Menon.
Industry body CII on Thursday made a case for pushing reforms in sectors like land, labour, and agriculture by the Modi 3.0 government to accelerate economic growth, which is estimated to be around 8 per cent in the current financial year. CII president Sanjiv Puri said a lot of policy interventions in the past have put the economy on "a much stronger wicket". "The growth rate is poised to touch 8 per cent during the current year, marking the fourth consecutive year of above 7 per cent + growth.
The high court of Jharkhand on Friday granted bail to former chief minister Hemant Soren in a money laundering case linked to a land scam.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday filed her nomination for Nandigram assembly seat, where she will take on her former protege and Bharatiya Janata Party leader Suvendu Adhikari and exuded confidence of winning it saying she has never returned empty-handed from the land of anti-farm land acquisition movement.
Faced with stiff opposition on the land bill, the government on Thursday reached out to leaders of opposition parties, including Sonia Gandhi, and activist Anna Hazare inviting them to an open debate on the issue while asserting that the bill was "very much in farmers' interest".
Union Agriculture Minister Arjun Munda on Tuesday said a law guaranteeing minimum support price (MSP) on crops cannot be brought in a hurry without consulting all stakeholders and urged the protesting farmer groups to have a structured discussion with the government on the issue.
The prime minister addressed a gathering at Hussainiwala.
Centre plans to acquire land and then give it on lease to miners.
Amidst strained ties with China, the pre-budget Economic Survey on Monday made a strong case for seeking foreign direct investments (FDI) from Beijing to boost local manufacturing and tap the export market. As the US and Europe are shifting their immediate sourcing away from China, it is more effective to have Chinese companies invest in India and then export the products to these markets rather than importing from the neighbouring country, the Survey said.
The Nationalist Congress Party MLA was caught on camera allegedly slapping Deputy Collector (land acquisition) Abhay Kargutkar, reportedly after a disagreement over compensation to farmers for land acquisition.
Congress President Sonia Gandhi, who was taken ill on Monday, was back in the Lok Sabha on Thursday to attend the debate on Land Acquisition Bill but did not participate in voting the legislation which was being pushed by the National Advisory Council headed by her.
He said that such a campaign will hurt the interests of the country.
The Union Cabinet on Tuesday night decided to recommend re-promulgation of the land acquistion ordinance incorporating nine amendments that were part of the bill that was passed in Lok Sabha earlier this month.
The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear on Monday the plea of farmers' organisations challenging legality of the fresh promulgation of the land acquisition ordinance by the Narendra Modi-led government.
rediffGURU Anil Rego answers readers' personal income tax queries.
He requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi to make an announcement that the farm loans would be waived, while a mechanism for the same could be worked out later.
The farmers' agitation, spread over months, had halted construction and delayed supply of thousands of residential units.
The private complaint against Yediyurppa alleged that during his tenure as the chief minister from 2008-12, he illegally de-notified 20 acres from land acquisition proceedings to give undue favours to private parties.
Here is the chronology of events in the Ayodhya Ram temple issue.
The biggest challenge will be to convert his regime into a coalition of minds. But given the fact that he is instinctively an authoritarian leader and supporter of the hard Hindutva line, the survival of his government will depend on his ability to balance between his heart and mind, between instinct and pragmatism, asserts Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, author of Narendra Modi: The Man, The Times.
'In North India, brother kills brother for a small piece of land. So if the perception goes that the government has come to snatch away land, then the issue can go to any extent.'
Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh and other ministers like to boast that of the 450 SEZs coming up in the country, nearly 120 are in Maharashtra. However, since most of the SEZs are single product or IT SEZ, land acquisition is not much of an issue. But in the case of six SEZs, which are multi-product SEZs and where over 1,000 hectares of land have to be acquired, it is proving to be an albatross around the state government's neck.
Sonia Gandhi alleged it was a mockery of the consensus building exercise by a "myopic" Modi government which was "bending backwards" to favour industrialists.0
According to the government sanction, the fresh manpower will be utilised for manning 47 new border posts and a dozen 'staging camps' or troops bases along this frontier.
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