-The Telegraph The state food and civil supplies department has during an internal audit detected a Rs 35-crore “scam” involving advance paid to 17 companies by the West Bengal Essential Commodities Supply Corporation Limited. State food and civil supplies minister Jyotipriya Mullick today handed over the audit report for the 2004-05 accounts to chief minister Mamata Banerjee. “An internal audit carried out by the department has revealed that Rs 35.86 crore was paid...

Korean steelmaker Posco’s bid to build a 12 million tone integrated steel complex in Jagatsinghpur, Orissa received a major jolt today after a two-judge bench of the National Green Tribunal suspended the environment clearance granted to the project in January 2011.   "The environment clearance granted on January 31, 2011 to the project shall remain suspended till such review and appraisal is done by the ministry," a bench of tribunal comprising Justice...

A Supreme Court-appointed panel on illegal mining has recommended an investigation into alleged kickbacks paid to companies linked to the family of former Karnataka chief minister BS Yeddyurappa. The Central Empowered Committee wrote in a report on Wednesday that payments of 6 crore by a mine owner to two companies controlled by the close kin of the former chief minister must be "investigated in public interest". The Supreme Court's forest bench will...

The Chhattisgarh government has filed a writ petition in the Delhi high court against the Central government over Jayaswal Neco Ltd’s applications for mining leases in a case that throws light on the murky world of mining in India. The state alleges that the mid-sized steel-maker forged documents in its application to get Iron Ore mining leases in Rowghat in Bastar district and that the Union government directed it to consider...

Closed mines and resultant unemployment are still stoking Naxalism in Saranda, a maiden jan adalat (public hearing) held 160km from the steel city insisted today, indicating that more needed to be done to make the much-touted central action plan for the red turf a long-lasting success. More than 1,000 villagers from the Maoist dens of Noamundi, Gua, Kiriburu and Barajamda among others, which fall in the mining belt of Saranda command...