Liquor baron Ponty Chadha’s mercurial rise is all ‘Maya’ A reclusive liquor baron may seem like an anomaly in these never-ending good times. But Gurdeep Singh Chadha—better known by the moniker Ponty Chadha—fits the bill. Often called “Mayawati’s financier”, the 57-year-old Ponty has been making large (if silent) waves for the political patronage he enjoys in Uttar Pradesh. Any bottle of liquor sold in India’s most populous state goes through his...

Warns of contempt action in case of any default The Supreme Court has directed the States of Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Jammu and Kashmir, Meghalaya, Maharashtra, Mizoram, Nagaland, Punjab, Sikkim and Tamil Nadu and the Union Territories of Andaman and Nicobar, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu and Lakshadweep to implement the various schemes formulated for the welfare of the workers without any further delay. A Bench of Chief Justice...

The Comptroller and Auditor General’s Report on the 2G Spectrum has created a great deal of controversy and his role is being questioned. The Public Accounts Committee could not finalise its report due to the splitting on the issue on party lines. The JPC currently examining the matter has taken an unprecedented step of taking evidence of a junior officer of the CAG’s set up, since retired, and quizzed the...

-IANS The central government cancelled the Antrix Corporation-Devas Multimedia deal for reasons of national security and not for purported loss of revenue in sale of spectrum, Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office V. Narayanasamy has said. He also said the government was not discriminating between space scientists and Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officials and, based on their culpability, punitive action would be taken against the latter too. "We did not cancel...

-The Economic Times   A government-appointed committee has recommended a complete overhaul of government accounting norms with a view to enforcing transparency and better monitoring of public spending.  In its report submitted to finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, the C R Sundaramurti Committee has suggested rationalisation and reorganisation of the existing account classification of list of major and minor heads of accounts (LMMHA) of centre and states."  The proposed accounting classification structure will provide a...