Sir — In his address to the BJP’s National Executive, Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked party workers to counter the false attack by opposition parties over the land acquisition Bill with “full confidence” and “full facts”. I tend to agree with the views of the party’s national spokesperson MJ Akbar that the Bill must be re-named as the ‘land and landless economic regeneration Bill’. The acquisition of land in rural areas will mainly benefit India’s landless labour, estimated to be around 100 million households
Another 200 million rural families subsist on less than two bighas and need to supplement their income with some form of employment. This huge force of landless and under-employed rural labour needs job opportunities around their villages. This can be provided by the manufacturing sector and with a corollary market of services.