Many will hope this is the beginning of a new phase in Dr Singh's tenure, when he lets his office, the government, his council of ministers, his party and coalition and the country know that he means business, that the buck stops with him, that his colleagues and officers must shape up or ship out, says Sanjaya Baru
Nine companies were given new licences in January 2008.
Pakistan Cricket Board lost revenue worth $47.22 million after the Indian government didn't allow Mahendra Singh Dhoni's men to tour the trouble-torn country for a Test series earlier this year, following the Mumbai terror attacks.
Accordingly, the Central Board of Direct Taxes has asked its officials in the field to check every deduction claimed by banks against each claim. The CBDT action has been prompted by a recent assessment of banks carried out by the Comptroller and Auditor General.
The Comptroller and Auditor General slammed the army for the poor quality of food items supplied to troops in Jammu and Kashmir and the northeast on Tuesday, noting that the rations had rotted in some cases.
State owned public sector undertakings have turned into white elephants for one of the most poor states.
More than 60 per cent of shareholders of edutech Byju's on Friday voted for removal of founder CEO Byju Raveendran and his family over alleged "mismanagement and failures" at what was once India's hottest tech startup, but the company dug in its heels, calling the voting done in the absence of founders as "invalid". Prosus - one of the six investors who had called the extraordinary general meeting (EGM) - in a statement said "shareholders unanimously passed all resolutions put forward for vote.
CAG has come a long way from an institution created to set the British finances right after the 1857 revolt.
In its report for the year ended March 31, 2008, the CAG has expressed serious concern over deficiencies like 'non-provision of the envisaged job guarantee to rural poor, fake payment of wages and delay in payment of wages to labourers'.
According to an interim report of the government audit body, the loss should have been Rs 8,589.1 crore (Rs 85.89 billion), instead of Rs 5,551 crore (Rs 55.51 billion) as has been shown in the account books, sources said.
The Comptroller and Auditor General on Monday said that the audit of certain activities of Department of Space were under way but made it clear that media reports on alleged scam in a deal between ISRO and a private firm cannot be concluded as its "findings".
"Before entering into any contract, the government will go through all details. We will assess the criticism, including that of CAG, on the issue. At present, the Gorshkov price escalation is in negotiation stage. Nothing has been finalised," Defence Minister A K Antony said during Question Hour.
The Comptroller of Auditor General (CAG) of India has rapped Maharashtra Government for giving 'undue benefit of over Rs 20 crore (Rs 200 million)' to controversial Satyam Computer Services Ltd by selling land at lower rates in Multimodal International Hub Airport (MIHAN) project at Nagpur.
A lot depends upon the crucial decision-making skills of the management. If you have any doubts about the management then you always have the choice of selling your shares or not buying stocks of those companies at all.
The Defence Ministry on Saturday said it would probe allegations of the Army spending Rs 1.17 crore on golf carts from special funds. Referring to the Comptroller and Auditor General slamming chiefs of the Army's Northern and Western Commands for alleged misuse of special financial powers during April 2002 and August 2007, Minister of State for Defence M M Pallam Raju said that "irregularities, if any, will be addressed."
It is because of the Comptroller & Auditor General that we know all isn't well in the murky world of government purchases and the allocation of resources.
The DoT is acting as a liaison between telecom companies and the CAG for an audit by the latter.
Former CAG Rajiv Mehrishi says Centre has held back a report he submitted to the President, to end what he called "a nightmare of accounts that militates against good governance".
"The figure of Rs 1.76 lakh crore (Rs 1.76 trillion) arrived at by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India is utterly erroneous," Union Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal said on Friday while addressing a press conference in New Delhi.
The state government allotted 50 acres of land near Visakhapatnam to Satyam Computer in December 2008 at a concessional rate of Rs 10 lakh.
Aadhaar is falling behind on technology, missing out on confidentiality and has gaps in its data archiving policy and preserving confidentiality in delivery of the cards to people, says a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG). The performance report, 'Functioning Of Unique Identification Authority Of India', tabled in Parliament on the last day of the budget session notes, assigning a unique identity to all resident Indians was supposed to be the key feature of Aadhaar. But "There were instances of issue of Aadhaar with the same biometric data to different residents indicating flaws in the de-duplication process and issue of Aadhaar on faulty biometrics and documents". It says close to half a million such records had to be cancelled by the Unique Identification Authority of India up to 2016.
The Board of Control for Cricket in India no longer enjoys the tax exemptions it got in the guise of being a charitable organisation but the government does not plan to bring it under the ambit of audit by Comptroller and Auditor General.
The Comptroller and Auditor General of India, the apex audit body, has decided to audit the accounts of five telcos-- Bharti Airtel, Reliance, Tata, Vodafone and the state-run BSNL-- for 2009-10.
Altogether 41,663 farmers in 383 villages in Washim, Yavatmal, Amravati and Buldhana districts of Vidarbha region were covered in the sample survey. Those reporting land holding in range of two to six hectares were 40 per cent and around six per cent reported land holding of more than six hectares, CAG said. Only eight per cent farmers confirmed visit of any government official in 2006, the report said.
Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday night alleged that a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India had found that Rs 50,000 crore was unaccounted for and 'missing from the central government's coffers'."The country wants to know from Prime Minster Manmohan Singh about this money that has simply vanished," Modi said. Training guns on Dr Singh, Modi said the country should know whether the huge sum of "missing money was being used for the elections."
Reliance Industries may ask the government for a refund of its investment if it is forced to give up any part of the prolific KG-D6 block as it has spent a huge sum of money on exploration after obtaining necessary permission to retain the entire 7,645-sq km area.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday received Bhutan's highest civilian award, the 'Order of the Druk Gyalpo', making him the first foreign Head of the Government to receive the honour.
The report for the period ended March 2009, presented in the assembly by Deputy Chief Minister S K Modi, who holds charge of the finance department, said revenue receipts between 2008-09 increased by Rs 4770.97 crore (Rs 47.7 billion) mainly due to grants-in-aid and share of Union taxes from the Centre.
Under attack over his remarks that official auditor should not "sensationalise" its audit findings, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday said media did not accurately reflect the spirit of his speech at the CAG conference.
The Supreme Court on Friday directed the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) not to release funds until the state associations file an affidavit implementing recommendations of Justice (Retd.) RM Lodha-led- panel. Issuing the direction, the apex court said the state associations cannot get any money from the national cricket body till the time they follow the Lodha committee's recommendations.
The Opposition party asked whether the prime minister will take responsibility for the 'deadliest rail tragedy' of this century.
This follows a letter by RIL to the ministry, justifying the increase in capex.
Replying to questions in Rajya Sabha, he said CAG in its audit observations has pointed out financial irregularities of Rs 1404.32 crore (Rs 14.04 billion) in its 2008 report and Rs 4547.63 crore (Rs 45.47 billion) in the 2007 report. Deshmukh said CAG has also pointed out reasons for deficiencies in the accounts of PSUs.
"At several occasions our leadership has given public statements on the issue. Each and every step in the process of the refit of the aircraft carrier is monitored by Indian navy's technical team and they have never raised objections," Vyacheslav Davidenko, the official spokesman for the Rosoboronexport state corporation, told PTI in Moscow.
The Comptroller and Auditor General report for 2008, released in New Delhi, also questioned the prudence of the Ministry in buying the second-hand Russian warship, which now comes at 'half its life-span and about "60 per cent more expensive' than a new aircraft carrier.
Tribal students in Jharkhand, who were given textbooks free of cost, could not use them as there were no "qualified teachers" to teach tribal languages, a Comptroller and Auditor General of India's report has said. The government in 2003 decided to introduce tribal languages for class I to V, it said.
It was planned to add 2,000 kms of new lines, convert 10,000 km of metre/narrow gauge into broad gauge, double the 6,000 km of single track and electrify 3,500 km of routes during the 11th Plan.
If CAG indicts Raja, will action be taken? asks Business Standard.
The police department had 49,143 units of weapons, of which 11,232 or about 23 per cent, were obsolete, the CAG report for the year ended March 31, 2009 said. There was also shortage of weapons as per Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPRD) norms.
Earlier this month, the corporate affairs ministry had written to various ministries including telecom, railways and steel seeking directions for public sector units under their administrative control for exempting Satyam from submitting audited balance sheets while bidding for projects of the state-owned firms.
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