Some of them have ambitious plans to fight the slowdown, while some would seek to revive their image.
Most senior scientists have complained of repeated questioning by the expenditure department, bureaucratic delays in clearances, more focus on procedure than on result and the lack of an environment for science to grow, reports Akshat Kaushal
The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) is expected to complete the special audit of the accounts of KG Basin oil and gas fields of Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) by February next year, a top official said.
The Shunglu Committee has faulted the sacked chief of Commonwealth Games organising body Suresh Kalmadi and his aides over award of contracts saying there was "extreme concentration of powers at the top" and "conflict of interest" among the organising committee officials.
Under fire over allegations levelled by a former Comptroller and Auditor General official on its report on 2G spectrum allocation, Murli Manohar Joshi on Friday said the "hurried" statement of Sonia Gandhi attacking the Bharatiya Janata Party has only exposed the Congress.
Cancellation of 2G licenses by the Supreme Court clearly revealed a big scam and it was a "collective failure" of the government which "overlooked" warnings given by the Comptroller and Auditor General and the Central Vigilance Commissioner on the issue, Janata Party chief Subramanian Swamy said on Thursday. "Everyone had warned, including the CAG and the CVC, but the government overlooked it," Swamy said soon after the Supreme Court cancelled the 122 spectrum licenses.
Artificial scarcity and lack of clarity on available bandwidth blamed for scam.
After the flop 2G spectrum auction that yielded only Rs 9,407 crore, government and the Congress on Thursday questioned the Comptroller and Auditor General's estimated loss of Rs.1.76 lakh crore in the spectrum allocation of 2001, drawing fire from the opposition. Information and Broadcasting minister Manish Tewari led the government attack by asking CAG Vinod Rai why the spectrum auction had not yielded anything close to the loss it had estimated.
The Press Trust of India on Sunday in its report quoted Minister of State in the Prime Minister's office V Narayanasamy as having said that converting the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) into a multi-member body was under consideration of the government. The minister, however, said that he was misquoted.
India has been elected to the newly established Independent Audit Advisory Committee, a five-member body which is expected to contribute to improving the accountability of the UN Secretariat to the member states.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday cornered the government for 'defending' Chief Vigilance Commissioner P J Thomas in the Supreme Court, asking Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress President Sonia Gandhi as to what was the 'compulsion' to defend the 'tainted' official and attack the upright comptroller and auditor general.
Observing that the "CAG is not a munim (accountant)" the Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a plea challenging the Comptroller and Auditor General's power to conduct performance audit of controversial allocation of coal blocks by the UPA government.
Chief Justice of India S H Kapadia on Saturday said loss is a matter of fact and profit and gain is a matter of opinion, remarks that came against the backdrop of raging controversies over valuation of natural resources.
The Institute of Company Secretaries of India (ICSI) has pulled up the company secretaries of two telecom companies whose names have been mentioned in the Comptroller and Auditor General's (CAG's) report on the controversial allotment of airwaves. The two officials named in the report are Hari Nair, representing Swan Telecom, and Vidyadhar Chakradeo, the company secretary of Loop Telecom.
Vinod Rai, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India till May and probably the most talked-about government official in the last few years, participated in a Live Chat with readers of Rediff.com on Friday.
Lawyer Prashant Bhushan is likely to approach the Supreme Court next week to seek cancellation of the controversial allocation of coal blocks and an independent probe on the lines of the 2G spectrum allocation case he had filed. Bhushan said he is collecting documents regarding the coal block allocation, which the Comptroller and Auditor General has found fault with, and preparing a detailed complaint.
Something can be done, provided we are willing to tackle the problem at its source rather than deal only with outrageous cases of corruption that are brought to the surface by the media, says Bimal Jalan.
The Comptroller and Auditor General on Tuesday declined to join a public debate on the controversies over its findings on the coal blocks allocation, which have come under attack from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the Congress and critics.
Newly appointed Comptroller and Auditor General Shashi Kant Sharma is is approachable and friendly, not forbidding, say his former colleagues.
Delhi airport has been losing money for the past six years because of the heavy interest burden on loans.
The Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to hear a PIL challenging appointment of Shashi Kant Sharma as the Comptroller and Auditor General of India.
Outgoing Comptroller and Auditor General Vinod Rai on Tuesday dismissed charges that he was behind the leak of controversial audit reports on 2G spectrum and coal block allocations.
The United Progressive Alliance government in its robust defence has rubbished Comptroller and Auditor General's charges against the allotment of coal mines and its estimate of losses to the exchequer.
Even as the Bharatiya Janata Party paralyses Parliament on the allocation of coal blocks by the Centre, its own government in Chhattisgarh had come under attack from Comptroller and Auditor General for allocating coal blocks at 'abnormally low' rates that led to a loss of over Rs 1,052 crore.
In an interview with CNN-IBN's National Bureau Chief Bhupendra Choubey, Public Accounts Committee Chairman Murali Manohar Joshi talks about the probe into the 2G spectrum scam and the government's flip flop on Comptroller and Auditor General report. Following is the transcript of the interview
The United Progressive Alliance is expected to put up a united face on Wednesday to counter opposition demand for resignation of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh over the Comptroller and Auditor General reports on coal block allocation and two other issues.
The Bharatiya Janata Partuy on Monday decided to aggressively demand the resignation of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh over the Comptroller and Auditor General report on the allocation of coal blocks and stall both Houses of Parliament on the issue on Tuesday.
Carved out of southern Bihar as a new state on November 15, 2000, Jharkhand has been plagued by adverse conditions -- low average income, high incidence of poverty and little social development because of political instability -- there have been seven government changes.
The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) will start the audit work of Commonwealth Games Village in New Delhi from October 28 to probe allegations of financial irregularities.
Sources say that the constitution of the high-level committee headed by former Comptroller and Auditor General VK Shungloo to look into the organising and conduct of the Games, is just phase one of the clean-up ops.
CAG says Rs 43,270.01 cr was spent by the water resources department on 426 incomplete projects.
Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh has sent a missive to the Comptroller and Auditor General, expressing concern over delayed audit reports adversely affecting the flagship National Rural Drinking Water Programme. In a personal letter to CAG Vinod Rai, he has drawn attention to the ministry not being able to release funds to the states as they are not submitting audits of accounts of grants-in-aid along with the utilisation certificates.
The Comptroller and Auditor General, which had at the end of its first sitting with RIL in January suspended the audit of spending on the flagging KG-D6 block following differences with RIL over scope and extent of the scrutiny, is likely to resume it next two weeks.
Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday sharpened its attack against Sports Minister Ajay Maken for allegedly misleading the Lok Sabha on appointment of Suresh Kalmadi as Commonwealth Games organising Committee head, saying the Comptroller and Auditor General report makes it clear that prime minister's office responsible for it.
Defending Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit over her indictment in the recently published report of Comptroller and Auditor General of India on irregularities observed in Commonwealth Games, senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh has said the party has decided not to take any action against her.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has constituted a ministerial panel, headed by Defence Minister A K Antony, to examine the findings of the Shunglu Committee that probed alleged irregularities in conduct of the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi last year.
Stung by the CAG's interim report which has found discrepancies in some deals, the Commonwealth Games Organising Committee (OC) on Thursday defended its broadcasting rights deal with Fast Track despite a high commission paid to them, saying the UK company had doubled the revenue target.
The Planning Commission has decided that approvals for all social sector projects undertaken by various non-government organisations, normally outside the purview of CAG, will come with the rider that they will be subject to audit, if required.
In further embarrassment to Congress, the Comptroller and Auditor General is understood to have rapped the Sheila Dikshit government in Delhi for irregularities in certain contracts related to the Commonwealth Games.
Organising Committee chairman Suresh Kalmadi, under fire for his alleged involvement in financial improprieties related to the Commonwealth Games, on Wednesday said he is ready to face any Comptroller and Auditor General or judicial probe into the financial transactions.
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