-The Hindu Congress president, Prime Minister call for timely payment of wages Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Thursday brought up the alleged embezzlement of funds meant for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme — an issue that has put the Mayawati government in the dock — at a function commemorating the completion of six years of the job entitlement scheme. Holding the State governments responsible for the shortcomings, Prime Minister Manmohan...

-The Telegraph     A non-government environmental agency claimed today that it has uncovered a scam in the solar power mission where, it said, a private firm has used front companies to circumvent government rules for solar power projects. The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) said its three-month-long investigation suggested that the company had used unfair practices to grab lucrative projects under the first phase of the solar mission that hopes to add...

-BBC   India's Supreme Court has cancelled 122 telecommunications licences awarded to companies in 2008. The licences were issued by former minister A Raja, who is accused of mis-selling bandwidth in what has been called India's biggest corruption scandal. Mr Raja denies wrongdoing. Government auditors say the scandal cost the country about $40bn (£24.5bn). The judges also ordered a court to decide whether Home Minister P Chidambaram should be investigated. Opposition MPs accuse Mr Chidambaram of...

-The Telegraph Income tax officials today searched the house and two dozen properties of a liquor baron said to be close to Mayawati, the simultaneous raids apparently throwing up a chest that needed gas-cutters to prise open. TV Reports claimed the chest — found in the basement of a Noida mall said to be owned by Gurdeep Singh Chadha — could be stashed with notes worth over Rs 100 crore, but late...

For the Government of India the first phase of the national solar mission has been a grand success. It not only managed to attract industry to invest in the generation of an energy considered costly, but also dramatically drove down the cost of producing this energy. In its celebration, little did the government realise that a major conglomerate had subverted rules to acquire a stake in the solar mission much...