In an interview with Karan Thapar on the CNN-IBN channel's Devil's Advocate programme, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia explains why he faults the controversial report of the Comptroller and Auditor General on 2G telecom spectrum allocation. Edited excerpts:
The Comptroller and Auditor General detected financial irregularities of over Rs 10,000 crore in Bihar government departments during the financial year 2012-13.
A combative Sonia Gandhi on Thursday asked Congress MPs not to be defensive on the CAG report on coal blocks allocation and to aggressively counter the offensive launched by the Bharatiya Janata Party which is demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the issue.
Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh took a dig at Comptroller and Auditor General Vinod Rai on Thursday asking why does he not stop leak of reports from his office, a day after the latter deprecated the "brazenness" with which the decisions were being taken by the government.
Nine companies were given new licences in January 2008.
The Comptroller and Auditor General said on Thursday that inventory assets of public sector undertakings had become a "vulnerable" area for divestment as these were not complete and not verified systematically.\n\n\n\n
It involved collection and maintenance of data in respect of the participants such as demographic details, biometric impressions and digital photographs. Sebi awarded the work of MAPIN to the National Securities Depository Ltd in May 2003 through a memorandum of understanding without competitive bidding.
Cairn India and UK's BG Group too replied to audit observations.
The comptroller and auditor general has unearthed a Rs 450-crore scam involving the purchase of Israeli unmanned aerial vehicles by the Hyderabad-based National Technical Research Organisation, a technical arm of the external intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing. In the first ever audit of any intelligence agency in India, it was found that these UAVs were lying as junk.
Government auditor CAG also noted in a report that these demands are "unrealisable 100 per cent".
Terming the move for getting of a "large number" of planes as "risky", the CAG said the aircraft acquisition had "contributed predominantly" to the airline's massive debt liability of Rs 38,423 crore (Rs 384.23 billion) as on March 31 last year.
With the figure of Rs 1.76 lakh crore loss in 2G spectrum allocation being disputed, Comptroller and Auditor General Vinod Rai and other officials of the government auditor will be asked to appear before the Joint Parliamentary Committee looking into the issue.
The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) is understood to have questioned the government's reasoning to order 111 planes for Air India for almost Rs 50,000 crore (Rs 500 billion) in 2006.
The Comptroller and Auditor General, whose report on a presumed loss of Rs 1.76 lakh crore in 2G spectrum allocation created a storm in Parliament, will appear before the Public Accounts Committee on Monday.
The Comptroller and Auditor General, whose report on a presumed loss of Rs 1.76 lakh crore in 2G spectrum allocation created a storm in Parliament, will appear before the Public Accounts Committee on Monday.
The government has paid commitment charges of Rs 86.11 crore (Rs 861.1 million) during 2009-10 in the form of penalty for not timely utilising the aid approved by multilateral and bilateral lending agencies.
In a presentation to investors in Mumbai last week, Aramane Giridhar, Joint Secretary (Exploration) gave detailed reasons for pendency of decisions in the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas where officials approved of decisions but refused to issue formal orders, resulting in delays in production of oil and gas.
Congress leader Sanjay Nirupam on Monday slapped a legal notice on ex-Comptroller Auditor General Vinod Rai accusing him of defamation and threatened to launch criminal proceedings if he did not apologise for remarks that the MP had asked the former chief auditor to drop Manmohan Singh's name from 2G report.
India's mainstream naval fighter jet plane MiG-29K faces operational deficiencies due to defects in engines, airframe and fly-by-wire system leading to very low availability.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said data is information and it will dictate history in the future as he exhorted for strong and scientific audits to make systems strong and transparent. Speaking at the Audit Diwas event of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG), he said in the past information was transmitted in form of stories.
The Comptroller and Auditor General of India report for 2010-11 on direct taxes, tabled in Parliament on Friday, revealed that 958 lakh (95.8 million) PANs were issued up to March 2010 but IT returns filed in the last fiscal were only 340.9 lakh (34.09 million).
After the Bombay high court, it was the turn of the Comptroller and Auditor General to slam the Maharashtra government over non-levy of entertainment tax on Indian Premier League matches, saying the state lost nearly Rs 5 crore on this count in 2008.
Sukanta Majumdar, the state BJP president, said, "Amit Shah has set a target of 35 seats. We will achieve that".
Report says ineligible farmers given benefits.
The 19-member National Syllabus and Teaching Learning Material Committee (NSTC) will be headed by National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration (NIEPA) chancellor MC Pant and develop textbooks for classes 3 to 12.
In an editorial in its mouthpiece Saamana, the Uddhav Thackeray-led party said Prime Minister Narendra Modi should first respect uniform law by disqualifying 40 MLAs including Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, whose Urban Development department has taken action against 18 ex-corporators from the Bhiwandi Nizampur City Municipal Corporation (BNCMC).
Railway officials also indicated that possible 'sabotage' and tampering with the electronic interlocking system, which detects the presence of trains, led to the Friday accident.
Former Comptroller Auditor General Vinod Rai has come out with a stinging criticism of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh saying integrity is not just financial but intellectual and professional too and claimed that Congress leaders had sought to apply pressure on him to keep the PM's name out of audit reports.
Gadkari and Singh on Thursday came together to release a book on late Congress leader Ramkrishna More at Pimpri Chinchwad near Pune.
Congress leader Digvijaya Singh on Tuesday claimed a senior railway official had flagged a fault in the signal interlocking system in February and warned of the train accident risk but the problem was not rectified which led to the Balasore train crash.
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.
Despite the hope that lessons will be learnt, the next accident invariably shows that nothing has been learnt -- or if learnt, they have been ignored, observes Prosenjit Datta.
The scarcity of resources is particularly evident in the case of Rajasthan compared to many other states.
Karunanidhi was convinced that using the 2G cases against the DMK and reopening the fodder case against Lalu Prasad Yadav were products of the Congress leadership's short-sightedness. A revealing excerpt from A S Panneerselvan's Karunanidhi: A Life.
Reacting to the hike in power rates, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday said that the Comptroller and Auditor General's report on discoms would ascertain the lack of funds as stated by power distribution companies.
'It is frustrating when you have to say 'No', but you are helpless when something is not available.'
Cardiac patients whose proposals for a regular health insurance plan get turned down should apply for a cardiac-specific plan.
Most politicians and even non-politicians have been honoured because of what they were purported to be electorally worth for the ruling party of their time, argues N Sathiya Moorthy.
Some doctors were absent from duty for 20 years, others for 15, some for 12. About 64 doctors remained absent from duty for more than five years.
