-The Hindustan Times Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) Vinod Rai’s comments on Thursday at the Harvard Kennedy School (US)— saying his office was advised by the ‘highest in the land’ not to ‘exceed our mandate’ and get into auditing policy formulation — sparked off a war of words between the government and the opposition. Pointing out that constitutional authorities should circumscribe by “Lakshman Rekha propriety”, I&B minister Manish Tewari on Friday said...

-The Hindustan Times The European Union on Friday staunchly defended its decision to re-engage with Narendra Modi a day after it emerged that the Gujarat chief minister had a quiet lunch with the ambassadors of the member countries here early this year, ending a decade-old boycott.   The January 7 lunch is likely to be seen as a major boost for Modi, who after his third successive win in the western state, is...

-Outlook Paradip (Odisha): Land acquisition for the proposed mega steel plant of Posco is likely to resume tomorrow despite a day-long opposition by local residents, officials said. Odisha government halted land acquisition activities for Posco's proposed Rs 52,000 crore mega steel plant project for a day today in view of stiff opposition from locals. "The process is on though we have halted the land acquisition activities for one day," Jagatsinghpur district collector S...

-Outlook At a time when Narendra Modi is reaching out to cross-section of people nationally and internationally, the European Union today stressed on the "accountability" for the 2002 Gujarat riots, maintaining that the matter was of "interest" to everyone. It also said the issue of 2002 riots figured in its meeting with Modi, who had met the EU delegation last month after victory in the Gujarat assembly polls. "Modi came to (have) lunch...

-The Hindu BJP-leaning candidate held for testing voters’ loyalty To prove that they had voted for a candidate who lost the gram panchayat elections, 100 people were allegedly forced by him and his campaign manager to put their hands in boiling oil in north Gujarat’s Sabarkantha district on Tuesday night. Though the gram panchayat elections were not fought on party symbols, the candidate, Dinesh Parmar of Deria village in Bayad taluk, 40 km...