Bowing to the clamour for scrutiny of the accounts of private power distribution companies operating in the city, the Delhi government has finally approved their audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG). According to a cabinet note, the government sanctioned an audit of the three discoms — BSES Yamuna and Rajdhani, and NDPL — “since inception.” The decision to get a CAG audit carried out was disclosed during a hearing in...

There are two serious points of disagreement in the reports of the SIT and the amicus curiae, Raju Ramachandran. THE Ahmedabad Metropolitan Magistrate, M.S. Bhatt, on February 15, rejected pleas seeking copies of the Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team's (SIT) report on the 2002 Gujarat carnage until March 15 on a technicality – that the SIT needs more time to submit its full report along with all documents, evidence and other...

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...

West Bengal: An agrarian crisis looms over the State as farmers commit suicide in spite of a bumper crop. THE topic of suicide figured repeatedly in Safar Molla's conversations with his neighbours a few days before his death. The 18-year-old marginal farmer from Kaltikuri village in Bardhaman district's Bhatar block talked about it quite casually, in fact even jocularly. Everybody in the village knew he was up to his neck in...

-DNA   The outgoing chief information commissioner (CIC), of Maharashtra Vijay Kuvalekar, opined that the judicious usage of the Right to Information (RTI), Act 2005, has proved potent in solving many problems of the common man. Kuvalekar, was speaking to the media persons, on the eve of his retirement on Monday in Pune. “In my five-year tenure, I have come across many cases, where RTI has been successful in solving the problems of...