-The Hindu “I seek the indulgence of the House… 3. …I want to assure Hon’ble Members that as the Minister in charge [for a part of the time covered by the report], I take full responsibility for the decisions of the Ministry. I wish to say that any allegations of impropriety are without basis and unsupported by the facts. 10. The observations of the CAG are clearly disputable. 11. The policy of allocation of...

-The Hindu "Charges of impropriety are unsupported by facts" Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday attacked the Comptroller and Auditor-General’s report on the coal blocks allocation during 2004-09, saying any allegation of impropriety was without basis and unsupported by facts. As Parliament has been paralysed during the past week with an unrelenting and combative Bharatiya Janata Party disrupting proceedings in both Houses and demanding his resignation, Dr. Singh chose to make a statement...

-The Hindu CAG’s concept of presumptive loss flawed: Chidambaram Upset at the “unreasonable” disruption of Parliament by the BJP on the issue of allocation of coal blocks and the CAG report, the government went on the offensive on Friday, terming totally flawed the Comptroller and Auditor-General’s concept of presumptive loss and maintaining that no loss took place because the coal was still unexploited. “The policy for allocation of coal blocks has been the...

-The Hindu Business Line Hyderabad, Aug. 24: The Andhra Pradesh Government has announced new guidelines for sand mining in Agency (tribal) areas of Khammam and Warangal to bring transparency and accountability. According to the guidelines issued by the Government, the Andhra Pradesh Mineral Development Corporation Ltd has initiated steps to start sand operations under the control of gram panchayats and tribal societies. This will be under the supervision of district collectors and...

-PTI The government has decided to put on hold allocation of mines having minerals other than coal in view of the Mines and Minerals Bill pending before Parliament. The Prime Minister's Office (PMO) sent a directive in this regard to the Mines Ministry about two months back, sources said here today. The Mines Ministry was advised that since the Mines and Minerals (Regulation and Development) Bill 2011 had not been passed by Parliament...