-The Indian Express Fifteen-year-old Altaf Hussain crouches effortlessly and heads into what looks like a black hole. Dragging a large wooden cart behind him, he disappears into the gaping darkness within seconds. After what seems like an endless wait but lasts just half an hour, he emerges from the hole with a cart laden with dark, glittering coal. The head of this group of 30 is Abu Kalam Mia. The 27-year-old ‘sardar’,...

-Live Mint All file notings can be made public now except those explicitly exempted  The Union cabinet on Thursday decided to withdraw controversial draft amendments to the Right to Information (RTI) Act that sought to restrict disclosure of government file notings. The move allayed the concerns of rights activists. The draft amendments would have restricted disclosure of file notings only to social and developmental issues. The government had to drop the move following...

-The Times of India Internationally acclaimed academician Noam Chomsky of Massachusetts Institute of Technology of the United States has warned that Koodankulam could be another Bhopal disaster in waiting. In a solidarity letter to the struggling people he said: "Nuclear energy is a very dangerous initiative, particularly in countries like India, which has had more than its share of industrial disasters, Bhopal being the most famous." "I would like to express my...

-The Hindu The postponement conveyed by Petroleum Ministry to CAG on October 29 Only days after the change of guard in the Petroleum and Natural Gas Ministry, the “Entry Conference” by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) with the Petroleum Ministry officials and representatives of Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) to discuss details of the financial audit of KG D6 accounts has been postponed indefinitely. Sources in the Ministry said that after...

-The Indian Express Sharp differences have emerged between the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) and Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) over the scope of an audit into the production sharing contract between the company and the government for RIL’s off-shore gas fields. RIL had set two conditions: the audit should maintain the confidentiality arrangement between it and the government; and the scope of the audit should be restricted to accounting procedures of the...