-IANS   The Karnataka Lokyaukta (ombudsman) police Wednesday registered a first information report (FIR) against scam-hit former chief minister B.S. Yeddyurappa in a graft case related to a contract in an irrigation project. The FIR (No.33/1) was filed under section 13(1) of the Karnataka Lokayukta Act, 1994 and the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 on a complaint filed by Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) Y.S.V. Datta in the Lokayukta court against Yeddyurappa and Dhavalagiri...

Illegal iron ore mining involving hundreds of Indian officials and powerful politicians has devastated local communities in the southern state of Karnataka and cost its treasury more than $3.5 billion in revenue, according to a scathing report by an official anticorruption panel that was released on Wednesday. “In the illegal mining and irregularities committed in the export of iron ore, we have found the involvement of some 100 mining companies,...

Jairam Ramesh's removal as Environment Minister creates uncertainties for domestic environment policy and the deadlocked global climate talks. WHATEVER one may think of its overall impact, the recent Cabinet reshuffle was not exactly a damp squib. Its single most important component was Jairam Ramesh's replacement as the Minister of State with independent charge in the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) by Jayanthi Natarajan, a relative political lightweight with very little...

Karnataka: The report of the Task Force on encroachment of government land is likely to suffer a silent death. IT was clear to V. Balasubramanian, the Chairman of the Task Force for Recovery of Public Land and its Protection, when he submitted his report on encroachment of government land that it would ruffle quite a few feathers in the political and bureaucratic echelons of Karnataka. What he was unprepared for...

Bellary is only the tip of the rotting earthmound. Can a new proposed legislation clear the air? Two years ago, when the ministry of mines decided to use satellite imaging to survey projects, it unearthed several “unusual activities” across the country. “The amount of mining done and material being exported didn’t match in areas where certain companies had been given licences,” recounts a former senior bureaucrat with the mines ministry....