The Fifth Schedule of the Constitution, the 73rd amendment and the landmark PESA and Forest Rights Act (FRA) have progressively acknowledged the rights, and special powers of the Gram Sabha in deciding developmental projects as well as playing a role in protecting the ecology and forests. But a clutch of clever exemptions in recent months are ensuring that centralised authorities take away the same powers through the back door, without routing...

-The Times of India More than five months after the CBI began investigating coalgate, the agency is yet to receive hundreds of files from the coal ministry as it probes charges of criminality in allocation of coal blocks to private players. Although CBI has been sifting through an enormous mass of information regarding coal block allocations that the CAG has said caused a loss of Rs 1.86 lakh crore to the government,...

-The Business Standard CM has withdran 5% VAT relief on subsidized, non-subsidized cooking gas After the centre’s decision to hike fuel prices through decontrol mechanism, it is virtually double jeopardy for the people in Uttarakhand with the state government withdrawing Value Added Tax (VAT) relief on the Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) cylinders. In the latest decision, chief minister Vijay Bahuguna, who is heading Congress-led coalition government in the hill state, withdrew 5% VAT...

-The Telegraph Union power ministry is understood to have decided to go ahead with its 1980MW project covering Chatra and Hazaribagh districts, overriding coal ministry objections but has agreed to cut down land use for the proposed plant in North Karanpura. Setting aside objections of the coal ministry, which wanted the project shifted out of the coal-rich area, the power ministry has now moved a draft cabinet note indicating its resolve to...

-The Hindu The CBI, expanding its coalgate probe, has launched investigations against 300-odd companies and begun questioning officials of the Steel, coal and Power departments, the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, the Central Mine Planning and Design Institute Limited and the state-run coal India Limited on allocation of coal blocks between 1993 and 2008. The CBI has laid hands on nearly 700 files from the coal Ministry, running into 1,60,000 pages,...