-The Economic Times New discoveries of natural resources in several African countries - including Ghana, Uganda, Tanzania, and Mozambique - raise an important question: will these windfalls be a blessing that brings prosperity and hope, or a political and economic curse, as has been the case in so many countries? On average, resource-rich countries have done even more poorly than countries without resources. They have grown more slowly, and with greater inequality...

-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...

-The Indian Express The Income-Tax department is set to cancel the registration of yoga guru Baba Ramdev’s trust as a charitable organisation and withdraw all exemptions provided to it. This follows a final order passed on August 24 by the Income-Tax (exemption) unit in the case of his principal charitable organisation, the Patanjali Yogpeeth Trust, for the year 2009-10, after a scrutiny revealed that it was involved in a host of...

-The Hindu “I seek the indulgence of the House… 3. …I want to assure Hon’ble Members that as the Minister in charge [for a part of the time covered by the report], I take full responsibility for the decisions of the Ministry. I wish to say that any allegations of impropriety are without basis and unsupported by the facts. 10. The observations of the CAG are clearly disputable. 11. The policy of allocation of...

-The Hindustan Times Indian taxpayers may have lost as much as Rs. 3.8 lakh crore in scams in the power, aviation and coal sectors over the past eight years, the country's state auditor said in reports tabled before Parliament. The Comptroller and Auditor General charged the government with allotting coalfields and land for power projects and Delhi’s airport to private firms at a fraction of the market price, bringing the corruption issue...