-The Economic Times "We have no power." That's the message from India's most powerful - ministers in the central government's Cabinet - when asked to list the discretionary authority each enjoyed. Only one ministry concedes that it has some discretionary powers, which it is eager to shed.  Prodded by UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi, a group of ministers (GoM) has the job of finding the discretionary powers enjoyed by each ministry and prune...

-ANI Union Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal on Wednesday announced new rules for the telecom sector in which he said that the government has decided to de-link granting of future telecom licences from spectrum allocation. Addressing a news conference here, Sibal said all license henceforth will be unified and added that there will be a cap on spectrum capacity in case of mergers and acquisitions which in turn requires surrendering excess capacity. Sibal said...

The government is looking to track all mobile phone users. As per amendments made to operators’ licences, beginning May 31, operators would have to provide the Department of Telecommunications real-time details of users’ locations in latitudes and longitudes. Documents obtained by The Indian Express show that details shall initially be provided for mobile numbers specified by the government. Within three years, service providers will have to provide information on locations of all...

Liquor baron Ponty Chadha’s mercurial rise is all ‘Maya’ A reclusive liquor baron may seem like an anomaly in these never-ending good times. But Gurdeep Singh Chadha—better known by the moniker Ponty Chadha—fits the bill. Often called “Mayawati’s financier”, the 57-year-old Ponty has been making large (if silent) waves for the political patronage he enjoys in Uttar Pradesh. Any bottle of liquor sold in India’s most populous state goes through his...

-PTI Indians are the largest depositors in banks abroad with an estimated 500 billion US dollars (nearly Rs 24.5 lakh crore) of illegal money stashed by them in tax havens, the CBI director said on Monday.  India, in particular, has suffered from the flow of illegal funds to tax havens such as Mauritius, Switzerland, Lichtenstein, British Virgin islands etc.  "It is estimated that around 500 billion dollars of illegal money belonging to Indians...