-The Times of India Environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan has overruled objections from her officials to break the forest bureaucracy's monopoly over the annual Rs 10,000 crore bamboo trade and declared it a 'minor forest produce' instead of a 'tree' under forest laws. This will allow tribals, instead of forest departments, to harvest and Auction bamboo, which is one of the major raw materials for the paper, pulp and board industry, from their...

-Outlook Partha S. Bhattacharya, who was the chairman and managing director of Coal India Ltd (CIL) between 2006 and 2011, is credited with turning around the PSU. He spoke to Arindam Mukherjee on the heat and dust generated by the CAG report on allocation of coal blocks to private players. Excerpts: * Should the government allow the private sector into coal mining? There is plenty of coal for everyone. We are, at the...

-The Telegraph The government today dug out a 2006 verdict to argue that the Supreme Court was against Auction of coal blocks as law minister Salman Khurshid questioned the presumptive revenue loss of Rs 1.86 lakh crore in the allocation of 57 blocks. Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari, who addressed a joint media conference with Khurshid, read out the verdict that had nullified the NDA government’s plan for e-Auction of coal blocks. The verdict...

-PTI In the wake of controversies shrouding coal mines allocation, an inter-ministerial panel will decide next week the fate of 58 blocks which the private companies and PSUs failed to develop within allowed time. The government has already issued de-allocation notices to 35 government firms and 23 private companies which failed to develop the same allotted for captive use in the given time-frame. "An Inter-Ministerial Group, headed by Additional Secretary, Coal, Zohra Chatterji...

-The Hindustan Times The Congress on Thursday said the CAG had no mandate to audit the accounts of private companies and sought to debunk the argument that the government should have opted for the Auction route. The party also asked the CAG to respond to the debate triggered by its findings about its methodology and working style. Quoting a Supreme Court order in April this year, Congress spokesman Manish Tewari said the...