-The Telegraph The Supreme Court today said it couldn’t be a coincidence that only politicians’ friends, relatives and associates were allotted Coal Blocks and asked the government to explain why it couldn’t implement a 2004 policy of bidding. “You (the Centre) may have a well-laid-out policy, but is it a coincidence that all the allottees are only politicians’ family, friends and associates?” a bench of Justices R.M. Lodha and Anil R. Dave...

-The Hindustan Times The coal ministry took away 40 blocks that had been allotted and "explored in detail" by Coal India Limited (CIL), a PSU, so they could be handed over to private parties, a CAG report has said. These 40 came from a chunk of 48 blocks de-reserved from CIL's kitty in May 2006. As of June 2011, of the 48 blocks , nine blocks remained unallocated, three were de-allocated after...

-The Times of India The inter-ministerial group (IMG) reviewing coal block allocations that have been questioned by the federal auditor for being allotted arbitrarily could not complete its proceedings and is expected to meet again on Friday. The IMG meeting could not complete its case-by-case assessment of 29 blocks allotted to private firms with the response of the private players being considered against the terms they are alleged to have violated. Sources said...

-First Post A lot has been written in recent weeks about crony capitalism, but an important issue for the media to introspect over is this: can this happen without significant amounts of crony journalism? When media companies begin to think they can run coal plants, surely this compromises them (Lokmat Group, DB Corp). When political parties think they ought to own media houses or be aligned to one (YSR Congress’ Sakshi, the...

-Outlook At least five of the 13 Coal Blocks allocated when Madhu Koda was the Chief Minister of Jharkhand are under the CBI scanner for alleged irregularities in the applications submitted by the beneficiary firms. CBI sources said today preliminary investigations have shown there were alleged irregularities in the allocation of at least five Coal Blocks during the tenure of Koda--between September 2006 and August 2008. During the two-year period, the sources said...