All 12,800 villages of Punjab are set to get all 14 citizen services under one roof from December this year, with the Rs 91-crore prestigious programme of 3017 e-gram at each Panchayat cluster becoming functional. After going through the presentation by Joint Secretary of Ministry of Rural Development and Panchayat DK Jain as well as the experience cited by service providers and multinational IT companies contending for this prestigious job, Deputy...

Union Ministry of Environment and Forests is investigating alleged violation of forest laws by Vedanta Co and Korean steel maker Posco in Orissa, the Rajya Sabha was informed on Monday. Replying to supplementaries during Question Hour, Minister for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh said a four-member expert group is currently in Orissa looking at all cases of alleged violation by Vedanta Co. An iron ore mining project may comprise both forest and...

Hit by allegations of corruption in the Commonwealth Games, the government today promised to take action against those found guilty even as another venue was inaugurated with a leaking roof. Union urban development minister S Jaipal Reddy was in damage-control mode over the Central Vigilance Commission's report on widescale corruption in Games' construction projects. "CVC has come out with preliminary remarks on the alleged irregularities in the construction of Commonwealth...

Criticising the government’s Mining Bill, FICCI has said that the proposed legislation would adversely impact investments in the sector. It also termed the government’s scheme to provide shareholdings to tribals in mining projects as flawed. In a recent letter to Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, FICCI Secretary General Amit Mitra said that the proposed act will “adversely affect the industry”. “...the latest draft of the Mines and Minerals Development and Regulation Act 2010 proposes...

The Central Vigilance Commission is examining all construction work related to Commonwealth Games being undertaken by civic agencies following complaints of alleged large-scale corruption. The anti-corruption watchdog has also decided to formulate vigilance guidelines to check Public-Private Partnership (PPP) projects. "Apart from expeditiously attending to complaints relating to the Games, the Commission, through its Chief Technical Examiner's Wing, is keeping a close watch on all the contracts and works undertaken...