-The Telegraph More than one in eight registered pesticides, including the controversial endosulfan, endanger people’s reproductive and nervous systems and may cause cancer and congenital deformities, a Supreme Court-appointed expert committee has said. The panel has suggested these pesticides should be phased out over the next two years instead of their existing stocks being immediately incinerated, as the latter process would cost the exchequer Rs 1,189 crore. A public interest litigation moved last...

-The Business Standard Deconstructing the numbers shows companies have bid smartly to get the best deals The recently concluded sale of 1,800-MHz spectrum through auction to telecom service operators, or telcos, has been declared a damp squib for two reasons: One, only five telcos participated in the auction; and two, the bids added up to Rs 9,407 crore, which was less than a third of the Rs 30,000 crore the government had...

-The Hindu The intention behind the move to make the CAG a multimember body is not to activate the Shunglu Committee’s report but a desire to clip the auditor’s wings During the last few days there have been many comments on the report that the government of India was considering a proposal to make the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) a multimember body. The move has been widely seen as...

-The Hindu The trials and tribulations of Ashok Khemka and Sanjiv Chaturvedi expose Haryana’s intolerance of upright bureaucrats When Haryana’s top land registration official, Ashok Khemka, decided to probe Robert Vadra’s land deals in the State, he perhaps never anticipated the kind of animosity that his actions against Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law would generate within the government. Or, maybe he did, but went ahead nevertheless, hoping that a proactive media would...

-The Hindu The wretched outcome of the 2G spectrum auctions, netting just Rs.9,407.64 crore against a Rs.40,000 crore revenue target, has evoked predictable reactions from the Congress party. Its leaders have indirectly mocked the Comptroller and Auditor General, the Supreme Court and the media for tying the government’s hands — instead of expressing concern about the impact of the failed auctions on investor confidence and India’s worrying fiscal deficit. Their gloating...