-PTI An uneasy calm prevailed here on Tuesday with police tightening vigil as anti-nuclear protesters continued with their relay fast at Idinthakarai, epicentre of protests against the Kudankulam Nuclear plant, condemning the action against anti-KKNPP activists. Police here said the situation was calm but they are keeping a strict vigil. “Security has been stepped up,” sources said. Sources close to S P Udhayakumar, convener of People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy, spearheading the protest...

-The Times of India The government may be standing firm against Scrapping coal block allotments to private companies but a high-level official panel for monitoring progress in these mines is pitching for largescale de-allocation to "defuse the current crisis" over Coalgate. "Out of the 90 coal blocks allocated to private players since 1993, 60 coal blocks with 6.7 billion tonnes (estimated reserves) valued at nearly Rs 2 lakh crore can be cancelled...

-The Times of India The Comptroller and Auditor General is likely to make a strong pitch for Scrapping all the controversial allocations of coal mines during its presentation to Parliament's Public Accounts Committee. Sources said the auditor looks set to cite total lack of transparency in the recommendations made by the screening committee for allocation of coal blocks worth thousands of crores. In its presentation to the PAC likely next week, the...

-The Economic Times The three reports of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) on coal, ultra-mega power projects and airports, playing out in the public discourse as major indictments of corruption and of the government, serve only to spread confusion and convert infrastructure building into a political battleground. The reports are ill-informed by commercial logic, sometimes deficient in factual detail. However, since they bear the authority of a constitutional body, the...

-The Hindu The Left parties have decided to observe September 12 as Food Security Day across the country and their general secretaries will write to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, demanding amendments to the Food Security Bill. This was decided on the concluding day of the parties’ sit-in in support of a comprehensive Food Security Bill here on Friday. The the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the Communist Party of India, the All...