Order of the High Court of Uttarakhand (WPPIL No. 202 OF 2024 with WPPIL NO.174 OF 2024) in the matter of mining operations in Bageshwar district, Uttarakhand. The order was passed by the Chief Justice of Uttarakhand High Court Guhanathan Narendar and Justice Manoj Kumar Tiwari. In compliance with the …
As Gujarat readies itself to hold an event to showcase its business-friendly environment, there is some good news for the state. A report released today shows it replaced Tamil Nadu in terms of freest state in 2011. The report, co-published by the Cato Institute, Academic Foundation, Indicus Analytics and the …
Madhya Pradesh has emerged as one of the leading wheat procurement states in the country in the last five years, reflecting remarkable changes in the regional distribution and dynamics of the country's grain procurement landscape. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Harda Mandi, this paper describes the new systems and …
During the year, govt also contemplated to open up sector for commercial mining Coal fired a minefield of controversies in 2012, fuelled by CAG estimates of a huge Rs 1.86 lakh crore loss for allocation of coal blocks to business houses without auction which served as fodder to the Opposition …
The South Asia Network on Dams, River and People (SANDRP) — an informal network of organisations and individuals working on issues related to the water sector — said on Tuesday that a Special Investigation Team (SIT) probe into the multi-crore irrigation scam in Maharashtra cannot be impartial under the chairmanship …
Elephant and rhino poaching surged to record levels in 2011 and an increase in illegal tiger hunting makes the species’ extinction a real near-term threat with only about 3,200 of the big cats left in the wild, according to a report commissioned by the World Wildlife Fund. The report, launched …
Timely and reliable payment of wages under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act is meant to be one of the initial applications of Aadhaar - the unique identity number that is supposed to be given to every resident of India. Pilot experiments with Aadhaarenabled payment systems were initiated in Jharkhand …
A Bill further to amend the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005. This Act may be called the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee (Amendment) Act, 2012.
The Odisha state government has been on an overdrive since the Shah Commission gave its report on Goa mining. During the last couple of months, the state mining department has issued circulars, policy guidelines, closure notices and formed a GoM, among other things. Continuing with these efforts to hoodwink the …
randomly search and seize “in-transit” cash in Gujarat ahead of the Assembly elections, making it clear this should apply only to candidates, workers and agents of political parties carrying cash over `50,000, saying “harassment” of ordinary citizens would not be tolerated. A bench of Justices D.K. Jain and M.B. Lokur …
Most people in India have assumed that the Maldives is guilty of breach of contract in the case of the Malé airport, and GMR the victim. But is there another side to the story? The contract was a revenue-sharing arrangement (one per cent till 2014, 10 per cent after that; …
The Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission's seven-year voyage seems to have yielded little, at a great cost. And, says a performance audit of the programme by the office of the Comptroller and Auditor General ( CAG), the main reason has not been corruption or leakages but ennui and poor …
Thousands of unfinished projects, diversion of funds to the tune of . 115 crore and lack of accountability and monitoring were some findings of a CAG report on the Centre’s flagship urban renewal project, the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), implemented by state governments. The CAG report on …
This report titled, “Human Rights in India – Status Report 2012,” provided a general overview of the most critical human rights issues in India. It included: information gathered from the various consultations held across India from August to October 2011; relevant case studies; WGHR’s initial response to the Government of …
The eagerly anticipated ‘white paper’ on irrigation in Maharashtra, expected to expose alleged irregularities and fix responsibility, turned out to be a damp squib as it claimed that projects in the state entailed lower costs and contract rates when compared with the adjoining states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Gujarat. …
Inordinate delays in project completion, diversion of around Rs 115 crore for other purposes, wasteful expenditures and ineligible beneficiaries getting benefits are among the several lapses found by CAG in implementation of UPA’s flagship urban infrastructure development scheme - Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM). Government auditor CAG, in …
The last planeload carrying participants from the COP 11 meeting of the international Convention on Biodiversity has flown out of Hyderabad, much to the relief of its citizens who were all inconvenienced for two weeks by the razzmatazz. One wonders if the 111th Conference of the Parties, when it occurs …
There is nowadays a mind-boggling level of adulteration in edible items, notably milk and spices, making it virtually impossible for the skeletal Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) to stamp it out. A snapshot national survey by the Centre for Science and Environment last year, found that 70 per cent of …
The row over the Kerala Land Use Bill is uncalled as the government has not yet decided on piloting amendments to the Bill, Chief Minister Oommen Chandy has said. Presenting a review of the Saptadhara scheme announced in November last, Mr. Chandy told reporters here on Sunday that the recommendations …
The Supreme Court on Friday asked the Karnataka government to consider and take a decision on the applications for mining leases within a month. The 'forest bench' also directed the Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh governments to respond to the vague state borders in mining areas. A centrally empowered committee has …
The CEFS performance audit suggests that in the implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme in the state of Bihar, there has been guarantee of only corruption, unemployment, poverty, distress migration, hunger and humiliation. Irregularities are the only regular feature of the rural job scheme in Bihar. …
