-The Hindu Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, daughter of Congress president Sonia Gandhi, and leading lawyer Prashant Bhushan are among 881 individual beneficiaries, companies, societies and trusts granted permission in the last three years to buy land in Himachal Pradesh. The strict land laws that do not permit outsiders or non- agriculturists to buy farm land were relaxed for these select few. The matter of land transactions was raised by Congress MLA Rohit Thakur,...

-Live Mint I&B minister raises prospect of independent broadcasting authority, says govt may be forced to set up ratings system Information and broadcasting (I&B) minister Manish Tewari on Friday raised the prospect of an independent broadcasting authority and said the government may be forced to set up a ratings system unless the industry took steps to put in place a credible method of ranking television programmes, in a series of statements that...

-PTI State tweaked rules to grant land to Ford and L&T, says report The Comptroller and Auditor-General of India has come down heavily on the Gujarat government and State public sector undertakings for causing a loss of nearly Rs. 580 crore to the exchequer by bestowing "undue" favours on large corporate entities. Major industrial houses to which the Narendra Modi government played benefactor included Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), Essar Steel and Adani Power...

-PTI GANDHINAGAR: The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) has come down heavily on the Gujarat government and state Public Sector Undertakings for causing a loss of nearly Rs 580 crore to the exchequer by bestowing "undue" favours to large corporate entities. The major industrial houses to whom the Narendra Modi government played the benefactor included Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), Essar Steel and Adani Power Ltd (APL), the report for year...

-PTI PATNA: CAG has ticked off Nitish Kumar government for lacking objective planning for utilisation of funds drawn on Abstract Contingency(AC) bills. The Bihar government had withdrawn Rs 16,033.01 crore on AC bills between 2009-12 of which the plan head drawals accounted for Rs 12,332.64 crore which indicated that object level planning was absent as items of expenditure were known while drawing the amount, CAG said in its report on state finances...