Vinod Rai’s searing honesty in his job as the country’s CAG has the government in many a bind CAG Catch 1 2G Spectrum, 2010 The CAG audit over a six-year period from 2003 finds loopholes in the implementation of norms, leading to DoT allocating spectrum at 2001 prices. Estimated loss to exchequer: the now-household figure of Rs 1.76 lakh crore. Outcome Former telecom minister A. Raja, MP Kanimozhi, telecom and...
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Poles apart by V Venkatesan
The Joint Lokpal Bill Drafting Committee concludes its meetings without any agreement on major issues. ON June 21, as the five government representatives and the five civil society members of the Joint Lokpal Bill Drafting Committee ended their deliberations after exchanging their versions of the draft Lokpal Bill, the battle lines were clearly drawn. The government was in no mood to agree with the civil society members led by Anna...
More »Land acquisition, FDI in retail, insurance top PM's reform agenda
-The Times of India Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday flagged amendments to land acquisition law, allowing more foreign investment in retail trading and insurance and introduction of good and services tax (GST) as the key reforms agenda of the government. "I think the first thing is to sustain the momentum of growth that we have built," PM said during a meeting with a group of editors. But a key...
More »War of words over 2G report at PAC again by Neena Vyas
Report is now dead, says Congress A war of words broke out at the first meeting of the newly constituted Public Accounts Committee (PAC) here on Tuesday. While some members were vociferous in their view that the committee's contentious draft report on the 2G spectrum allocation scam was “dead” as it was “returned” and “rejected” by the Lok Sabha Speaker for lack of proper procedure in its adoption, others felt...
More »Parliamentary Committee questions move to introduce Food Bill
-The Economic Times The Parliamentary Standing Committee on finance has questioned the government's move to introduce a right to food bill when it did not have a single, widely-accepted definition of the poor. The "criteria of identification of the poor remains nebulous," the Yashwant Sinha-headed committee has observed. The proposed food security bill, seen as the largest such legislation anywhere in the world, hinges on the definition of the poor. The...
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