-PTI Environment Ministry has constituted a high-level Working Group headed by eminent space scientist and Planning Commission member K Kasturirangan to examine the Western Ghats ecology expert panel report "in a holistic and multidisciplinary fashion". The nine-member Group will examine the Madhav Gadgil committee report released recently "in a holistic and multidisciplinary fashion keeping in view the comments received from the concerned state governments, central ministries, stakeholders", the Ministry said. The panel will...

-The Times of India The estimate of Rs 1.86 lakh crore mentioned in the CAG report on Coalgate as "windfall gains" to private players who bagged coal mines allocated by the government without bidding is not sacrosanct, according to senior sources in the auditing agency. "We have never claimed that our estimate is not open to debate," sources said, adding that even the expression "windfall gains" was not that of the auditor....

-The Times of India The prime minister will personally see every government decision to refuse permission for probe against an officer of the rank of joint secretary and above. The decision to involve the PM to oversee a veto of CBI request for probe against top officers appears an attempt to neutralize allegations that the cover of government sanction was being misused. Section 6A of the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act makes it...

-The Indian Express The exodus to the Northeast, perhaps the biggest mass displacement in peacetime, reads like the dark side of the Arab Spring or the reverse of a flash mob. The social and SMS media, which accumulate forces for positive change, were leveraged to spread rumours and disperse minorities by the fictitious threat of violence. And the response is totally inadequate. Social media shifted the balance of power from governments and...

-The Economic Times The CAG's report on Delhi International Airport (DIAL) is naive and uninformed. It asks why land was made available to a private developer at reduced rates to build and run an airport for 60 years, and insinuates that the developer, Hyderabad-based GMR group, got a sweetheart deal from the government. It seems to find it abhorrent that 5% of the land allotted could be used commercially and claims...