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Gurugram: There is considerable heartburn in the office of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India, the constitutional authority which is mandated to oversee public finances of the Union government, state governments and public organisations. Reason: the appointment of Girish Chandra Murmu to the position after a brief stint as the first Lieutenant Governor of the newly-created Union territory of Jammu and Kashmir. A senior officer has proceeded on long leave while others are...

Mumbai/Gurugram: A three-judge bench of the Supreme Court of India, led by Justice Arun Kumar Mishra, is expected to deliver its ruling in a dispute over electricity tariffs between Adani Power Rajasthan Limited and power distribution companies (discoms) in the state before September 2, two individuals with close knowledge of the matter have confirmed to NewsClick on the condition that they not be named. Justice Mishra, the senior-most judge of the Supreme Court (in terms of age), is heading the...

Over the last week, a document of unknown origin has been circulating in the capital. The two-page document listing eight court cases is reportedly doing the rounds of offices of the judges of the Supreme Court of India and senior lawyers. The document, a copy of which is with NewsClick, lists eight cases that have been taken up by the country’s apex court, each of which involves the Adani group and each of which has been heard by a bench of judges headed by Justice Arun Kumar Mishra. The...

Gurugram: Election Commissioner of India Ashok Lavasa is yet to decide whether or not he should accept the offer to hold the post of vice president of the Manila-based multilateral financial institution, Asian Development Bank (ADB). A source close to Lavasa who spoke to NewsClick on condition of anonymity said he would be consulting his family members and confidantes before taking a decision on whether he should become one of ADB’s six vice presidents. He has been offered the position of vice...

Mumbai/Gurugram, July 16, 2020: On July 12, the Cabinet of the Government of Gujarat announced that it had decided to revoke a government resolution (GR) of December 2018 that would bring down electricity tariffs. A number of news reports have described the decision as a “blow” to three major private power producers in the state––including the owners of two of the largest power plants in India, located near the coast of Gujarat––that are owned by companies from the Adani, Tata and Essar groups...

The largest opposition party, the Indian National Congress, is in a tizzy. Reason: there is a possibility that the Congress government in Rajasthan led by Ashok Gehlot may lose its majority following a revolt by the state’s Deputy Chief Minister and Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) from Tonk Sachin Pilot who is reportedly in talks with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Will Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi be able to defuse the crisis and prevent Rajasthan from going the Madhya Pradesh way...

Mumbai/Gurugram: There’s a classic tale. One cold night, a camel asks his master if he could put his nose inside his tent for warmth. “By all means and welcome,” says the man, and the camel stretches his nose first, and then his head into the tent. Soon afterwards, the camel asks the man if he can bring his neck and front legs inside the tent. Again, the master agrees. Finally, the camel asks: “May I not stand wholly within?” With pity, the master beckons him into the warm tent. But when the...

Mumbai/Gurugram: The price of the share of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), headed by India’s richest man Mukesh Ambani, jumped to a record high of more than Rs 1,804 on Monday June 22. RIL thus became the first Indian conglomerate with a market capitalisation in excess of $150 billion or nearly Rs 11,44,00,00,000,000. (Market capitalisation is the amount arrived at by multiplying the price of a company’s share at a particular point in time with the total number of its shares.) RIL’s Chairman...

New Delhi: After signing a binding concession agreement on February 14, 2019, to take over the operations of the international airports at Mangaluru (Karnataka), Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh) and Ahmedabad (Gujarat) from the Airports Authority of India (AAI) within six months, Adani Airports Limited has invoked a “force majeure” clause and requested the AAI to postpone till February 15, 2021, the execution of the agreement it signed with the public sector corporation. The Adani group company has also...

I am writing this personalised opinion piece at the invitation of Outlook because I am supposed to have a viewpoint, having spent 43 years as a journalist, that could add to the discussion currently going on about an article published on June 17 written by Salik Ahmad titled “Dear Editor, I Disagree With Your ‘Both-Sides’ Journalism.” First and foremost, my heartiest congratulations to Ahmad for writing what he did and I am overjoyed that his “open letter” has gone viral on social media at a...