The Central Bureau of Investigation, in its second chargesheet filed on Monday, named Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi's daughter Kanimozhi and several others for allegedly getting benefits out of the allocation of 2G spectrum to certain telecom firms.
The recommendations include divestment of 30 per cent government equity in BSNL, reducing the company's workforce by a third, and cancelling the telecom equipment order for 93 million GSM lines, replacing it with network outsourcing deals.
His party colleague and successor in the telecom ministry A Raja and his relative Kanimozhi are currently in Tihar jail in connection with the scam.
They say we get the politicians we deserve. In that case, all of us need to do better, immediately. For our elected leaders rarely make us proud; most of the times, they make us cringe. Rediff.com takes a look at politicians across India who made headlines this year, often for the wrong reasons, rarely for the right ones.
The Joint Parliamentary Committee on 2G scam is set to get a fresh extension beyond September 6 with the Lok Sabha on Wednesday unanimously adopting a resolution to this effect.
With several Parliament sessions during UPA-II being largely disrupted, BJP leader Arun Jaitley on Sunday "regretted" that a lot of valuable time was lost in the last five years due to "confrontationist politics" and said the Opposition achieves much more through debates than disturbances.
New winds are blowing in the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology offices at Sanchar Bhavan.
The Internet Service Providers Association of India (ISPAI), which represents ISP operators in the country, is planning to go to telecom tribunal TDSAT against the new guidelines on licence for broadband wireless access (BWA) services, announced on Friday by Communications Minister A Raja.
Research-in-Motion, the Canada-based provider of Blackberry services, has assured Indian operators that it has come up with a solution to the contentious issue of allowing government security agencies to monitor the service without compromising data security.
Reliance ADAG Chairman Anil Ambani will have to appear as a CBI witness in the 2G scam case with the Supreme Court on Wednesday refraining from passing any order and the trial court dismissing a plea for deferring his deposition scheduled tomorrow.
RComm will get GSM spectrum along with other players like Vodafone, Airtel and Idea. This move will bring RComm actively in the GSM field.
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.
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam patriarch M Karunanidhi was re-elected as party president for the 11th time in a row by the newly constituted general council on Friday.
Instructions have been issued to circles to ensure timely issue of telephone bills and to effect disconnection of telephones for non-payment promptly. The company has fixed a 35-day deadline for disconnection due to non-payment of bills, the reply said. Hitherto, banks and credit card companies were among the chief patrons of recovery agents, whose more often than not high-handed methods of recovering dues came for flak from the Reserve Bank of India last year.
Communications Minister A Raja has raised objections.
The Department of Telecommunications has suggested forfeiture of the performance bank guarantee given by Hutchison-Essar and imposed a penalty of Rs 50 crore
Members of the Vivekananda International Foundation are thrilled that the national security advisor and principal secretary to the prime minister are from its ranks, reports Vicky Nanjappa.
By asking that braces and struts be provided from all sides, will the Supreme Court be able to buttress the civil service spine so that it stands straight instead of bending over backwards, forward and sideways? Somehow, I doubt it.
'And who sold this belief?' 'Public-spirited individuals' like Subramanian Swamy.' 'Independent public servants' like Vinod Rai. 'Anti-corruption activists' like Kiran Bedi. And 'outspoken television anchors' like Arnab Goswami,' says Mihir S Sharma.
There are rumours that Ajay Singh who previously headed SpiceJet may get an investor to bail out the airline of dire consequences.
'The prime minister's advisers might have told him that going along with this AIADMK government will damage his image.'
The candidate is from the DMK's ruling family, and the sky is the limit -- for both expenses and expectations.
An impartial probe into the coal scam can only take place once Prime Minister Manmohan Singh steps down from office, Bharatiya Janata Party said on Friday in reaction to his offer to face CBI in a coal block allocation case.
'Tamil Nadu's youth bulge will soon be 70 per cent of the population, many of them smartphone-toting millennials looking for gains more tangible than what screen gods can give,' says Sunil Sethi.
The tough question before the DMK and its leader MK Stalin now is, what should their response be if sounded out for an alliance by the BJP for or after the next parliamentary polls, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Of the over five lakh responses, only two per cent rated demonetisation as a 'very poor' move by the government.
We understand the electoral compulsions, the desperate need for the BJP to have at least 50 per cent of the Hindus vote for them in Uttar Pradesh in a few months. For that, you need polarisation, put your own Muslim compatriots on the 'other' side. This is how your domestic politics runs contrary to your national, strategic interest, warns Shekhar Gupta.
As the mercury keeps moving up in the wake of rising temperature, poll fever is also soaring northward in Tamil Nadu which will witness a fierce fight for the 39 Lok Sabha seats between ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, even as a six-party BJP-led alliance is trying to play spoilsport.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday directed AIIMS director to constitute a medical board to examine whether Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief M Karunanidhi's wife Dayalu Ammal is medically fit to depose as a witness before a Special CBI court in a 2G scam case.
The prime minister was aggressive during his interaction with the media, but no one came away enlightened on issues of governance of this complex country after hearing him for 75 minutes, says Sheela Bhatt, who attended the press conference on Friday, January 3.
'Good politics is not just staying in power. You cannot sacrifice everything at the altar of trying to ensure the coalition remains in power.'
Mukesh Ambani's Jio, high debt and some bad decisions drove RCom to its grave.
Jio's disruptive strategy, including free voice services and data at throwaway rates, apart from offering all services free for six months, triggered a consolidation in the telecom sector.
The new Congress president is building a core team of youngsters while waiting for his mother's coterie to retire, reports R Rajagopalan.
After Congress questioned the logic of the $1 billion loan to the Adani group, the Communist Party of India (CPI) on Friday joined issue demanding RBI's intervention in the matter.
Monday's surprise meeting is an admission by the Bharatiya Janata Party that their purported strategy of hoping to ride the popular 'Modi wave' in a Tamil Nadu without Jaya and a bed-ridden Karunanidhi does not have much chance of success, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
'If anyone is able to understand the importance of Modi's endeavours to revive the economy -- even against opposition from sections of his own saffron brotherhood -- it is the former prime minister,' says Amulya Ganguli.
'(Upper caste) leaders talk against the Constitution, reservations and the nation and still get away.'
The prime minister pointed out that such infamous incidents occurred during the Congress rule.
'This coming general election is not going to be about manifestoes.'
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