The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill, 2012

The Bill will replace the existing Land Acquisition Act, 1894.

The BPL census is scheduled to be completed in the next three to four months.

Earlier CCEA nod on imported coal price to help hasten decision on these and 6 others

The recent Cabinet decision on coal cost pass-through should enable quick clearance of at least half the 18 power projects to be considered on Wednesday by a sub-group of the Cabinet Committee on Investment (CCI).

Warning comes after the approval by a sub group of the Narmada Control authority to a proposal to raise height of the dam from 122 meters to 138.68 meters

Medha Patkar has warned of a situation similar to Uttarakhand in the Narmada Valley in Madhya Pradesh if the height of the Sardar Sarovar dam is increased.

Tribal minister says he hasn’t seen the report on this, though his own secretary is a signatory

A panel set up by the Prime Minister’s Office to review the mechanism for forest clearances in industrial projects has suggested replacing the need for approval from the relevant gram sabha with state government “certificates’’. Tribal Affairs Minister Kishore Chandra Deo says he has yet to see the report, which in effect asks for disregarding the Forest Rights Act (FRA), which he has been championing.

A provision in the law is going to impact a large number of people who have been protesting against acquisition of land for decades

The land Bill to be tabled in Parliament this week would renew hope for ‘victims’ of many a pending land acquisition case, forcing project owners to pay fresh compensation to evacuees. It is also feared that it would open a Pandora’s Box of litigation, as well as reopen cases that are decades old. The provision in Clause 24 of the law is going to impact a large number of people who have been protesting against acquisition of their land for decades, in places such as Chhindwara and the Narmada valley in Madhya Pradesh and also in Odisha, not to mention Uttar Pradesh’s Bhatta-Parsaul, a place whose cause was taken up by Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi himself. Hence, the Bill is set to be a pre-election bonanza for many aggrieved people.

The audit of the contractor's accounting books and records ..will be an independent stand-alone audit as contemplated by the PSC and subject to confidentiality arrangements between the parties to the PSC which includes the Government

The office of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) said on Thursday it would have unfettered right of access to all records of Reliance Industries (RIL) during its audit of operations in the Krishna-Godavari basin and would override any conditions sought to be imposed on the process.

The court was to hear the interim findings of a Technical Expert Committee appointed by it

A task force will be set up under the Rural Development Minister to take the process forward and the first meeting will be held on October 17

Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh today met Jan Satyagraha activists and agreed to their demands for framing a National Land Reforms Policy, thus cutting short the march of about 50,000 landless people to Delhi. The march, which started on October 2 from Gwalior, was discontinued after Ramesh signed an agreement with Jan Satyagraha leader P V Rajagopal for bringing in land reforms and addressing the issues of the landless poor in the country.

A 12-member group of ministers (GoM) headed by Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, formed to vet certain provisions in the controversial Land Acquisition Bill, met in New Delhi on Thursday, but did not take any decision on the draft legislation.

The meeting took place amid criticisms from civil society activists that the rural development ministry had watered down some provisions of the Bill, which has been renamed as The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill, 2011. Industry representatives, however, welcomed the changes.