Singur land acquisition appears illegal: Calcutta HC
Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court has said that the process followed by the West Bengal government to acquire land at Singur for Tata Motors' small car project appeared to be illegal and has directed the state government to furnish all details of the controversial acquisition of 997 acres for the project.

The Court said the acquisition process seemed to be illegal as two different sections of the Land Acquisition Act of 1894 had been applied simultaneously by the government and ruled that two sections of a law could not be used at the same time.

The court was particularly criticial of the government's decision to provide only the stipulated compensation to farmers who had not consented to the acquisition of their land and to offer a 10 per cent bonus to those who did.

The bench observed that every paisa of the state exchequer was public money and should not be given away. The court's observations came in response to public interest litigation.

When contacted, a Tata Motors spokesperson said the company has no locus standi to comment.
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Inflation declines marginally to 6.63 pc
New Delhi: Inflation declined very marginally to 6.63 per cent during the week ended February 10 from 6.73 per cent a week earlier mainly due to the tight monetary and fiscal measures taken by the Government. However, it was still much higher than the RBI 's projection for this fiscal. Lower prices of food products, including vegetables, egg, mutton, poultry chicken, condiments, spices, fish-inland, sooji, gur, atta, sugar and some manufactured products led the fall in inflation, which still was the second highest this fiscal. Wholesale prices-based inflation stood at 3.81 per cent a year ago.

The Government has decided to set up a special monitoring cell to keep a daily watch on price situation and provide support to states.
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Crude oil price moves above $60bl
Mumbai: Oil prices moved above $60 a barrel mark in Asian trade on Friday as US energy inventories fell more than expected, dealers said. The New York's main oil futures contract, light sweet crude for delivery in April, dropped nine cents to $60.86 a barrel after advancing 88 cents to $60.95 a barrel in late US trades. The contract finished above $60 for the first time this year on Wednesday. Brent North Sea crude for April delivery was up one cent to $60.63 a barrel.
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WB industrialisation drive postponed for 3 months
Kolkata: The West Bengal government has postponed its ongoing industrialisation drive for three months and will instead start an extensive campaign to convince people that it would not take place at the cost of agriculture, former chief minister Jyoti Basu said.
Basu said, "For three months our party activists and those of our mass organisations will go to the people and convince them that industrialisation would not take place at the cost of agriculture," he said.

The veteran Marxist leader said, "There has been a misunderstanding on the issue. This could have been avoided if we had convinced the people. The campaign should have been undertaken much earlier."
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Maharashtra to obtain 2,000 MW more power by Dec: Deshmukh
Mumbai: The chief minister, Vilasrao Deshmukh said that the State would get around 2,000 MW additional power by December. He admitted there was a shortfall of around 5,500 MW and the State Government is making sincere efforts to tide over the crisis.

He said all issues regarding the Dabhol Power project are expected to resolved in the next 15 days and the state would get the full 2100 MW from the project. The government is also taking steps to ensure at least 10-hour power supply in rural areas. He added that the state has made a budgetary provision of Rs1,200 crore to buy additional power and is buying power at the rate of around Rs nine per unit from Andhra Pradesh.
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