Coal report not final, leak causes us anguish: CAG writes to Prime Minister

New Delhi:  The government has been accused of a massive coal scam by the opposition - both Houses of Parliament were adjourned this morning.  The latest crisis for the government is based on a draft report on coal mining by the government's auditor, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG). The leaked draft finds fault with the allocation of 155 coalfields to about 100 private and some public sector units or state-run firms between 2004 and 2009 instead of auctioning them off to the highest bidder.  The losses, according to the draft report, add upto Rs 10.7 lakh crore. The auditor does not make accusations of corruption, but says the government had extended "undue benefits" to the companies, and that in the absence of an auction, the sale of the coalfields was "subjective" and allowed "windfall gains."  (Excerpts from coal scam report by Govt auditor (CAG)

The Prime Minister oversaw the coal ministry for some of the period in question in the draft report. The government says it has so far not received a copy of the report. The Prime Minister's Office says that it got a letter from the Comptroller and Auditor General of India this afternoon. The letter allegedly states that "In the extant case the details being brought out were observations which are under discussion at a very preliminary stage and do not even constitute our pre-final draft and hence are exceedingly misleading...Pursuant to clarification provided by the Ministry in exit conferences held on 9.02.2012 and 9.03.2012, we have changed our thinking  .... In fact it is not even our case that the unintended benefit to the allottee is an equivalent loss to the exchequer. The leak of the initial draft causes great embarrassment as the Audit Report is still under preparation." (Prime Minister's Office on CAG report on coal mining)

The emphasis by the CAG on an auction echoes the Supreme Court's recent order which said the government must use an auction to distribute all natural resources.  That order came as the Supreme Court cancelled 122 telecom licenses that were sold, not through a bidding process, but to companies that were allegedly favoured in a distorted first-come-first-served process. In its draft report, the auditor says that the coal offered to firms was severely under-valued by the government and an auction of the coal-blocks would have helped ensure that the benefit of the low costs of coal production is passed on to the public.
India is the world's third-largest coal producer in the world after China and the United States.  State-run power company NTPC told Reuters it had made no windfall profits from the allocations and that the lower costs meant cheaper electricity for consumers.
Coal Minister Sriprakash Jaiswal said that the government used advertisements in newspaper ads to invite offers for the coal fields in question.  He also said that all state governments were consulted before the allocations were completed, and that BJP or Left led governments in states like West Bengal and Rajasthan had expressed reservations about an auction. "The coal blocks are allocated through a screening committee which is chaired by Coal Secretary," he said.   Before that, he explained, "We gave advertisements for allocation of coal blocks and invited applications...after the applications were received by us (Coal Ministry), the state governments were consulted and thereafter the coal blocks were allocated."

The Indian subsidiary of ArcelorMittal and steel makers Tata and Jindal Steel and Power, are among the companies named in the report. Jindal's controlling shareholder, Naveen Jindal, who is also a member of parliament, defended the policy of direct allocations, saying it had allowed private companies to jump-start production at mines left idle by state-run Coal India Limited, the world's single largest producer

The UPA has spent the last year trying unsuccessfully to beat its image as a government operating in a continuum of corruption and crisis, unable to implement reform or introduce transparency. "The Congress-led UPA government is looting the country. We can't allow this to happen. We have given notices under various rules today and will discuss with the leaders today and decide our next course of action," said Prakash Javadekar, BJP spokesperson as the party demanded a CBI probe into the alleged scam. Gurudas Dasgupta of the Left said, "This is a government of scams. All CAG reports indicate about misuse of public money...ministers, politicians are involved." 

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Hindus in Russia tense ahead of final verdict on Gita ban

Moscow:  India's diplomatic efforts to resolve a controversy relating to Russian state prosecutors' bid to get a Russian interpretation of the Bhagavad Gita banned and branded extremist literature will be put to test again with a high court in the Siberian city of Tomsk set to deliver its final verdict on Tuesday.
Anxiety and frustration has gripped Hindus in Russia as they feel there was a state-sponsored effort to proscribe "Bhagavad Gita As It Is", written by A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the founder of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON). Prosecutors have gone in appeal against a Tomsk lower court's dismissal of their plea December 28 last.
Indo-Asian News Service(IANS) had brought the case to global notice in December when Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was in Moscow for a summit meeting with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, resulting in an uproar back home in India. Parliament was rocked for two days over the Russian prosecutors' attack on their supreme religious text and philosophical treatise.
This led to External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna making a statement in parliament on the Tomsk city case that was filed in June 2011 and the Indian government mounting a diplomatic effort at the "highest levels" with the Russian government to get the matter resolved.
"Anxiety is mounting. The appeal by the state prosecutors is coming up for a final hearing on March 20 at the higher court in Tomsk," Bhakti Vijnana Goswami, the international chief of ISKCON, told IANS over the phone. He is currently on international tour and was somewhere in West Asia.
"This is the final hearing in the state prosecutors' appeal beginning on Tuesday. The verdict in the case may be pronounced either on Tuesday or Wednesday," ISKCON devotee Sadhu Priya Das told IANS from Moscow.
The appeal came up for hearing March 6 and, after hearing the prosecutors, the court fixed March 20 to hear the Hindus on their defence before the verdict is delivered.
Tomsk region prosecutor general Vasily Voikin, in his appeal, demanded that a Russian interpretation included in 'Bhagavad Gita As It Is' be banned.
"The prosecutor has demanded that a Russian translation of a comment in this book, earlier published in English, be banned as extremist, not the canonical text of the scripture," Tomsk region deputy prosecutor general Ivan Semchishin argued.
"The bid to ban the Russian translation of the Bhagavad Gita has been misunderstood," Tomsk region prosecutor general Alexander Buksman said.
"It's important to discern gems from the chatter in this very case; the society's perception of this issue is that prosecutors are standing against the concepts of this religion (Hinduism). However, the problem is that the Russian translation has paragraphs that could be seen as promoting extremism; prosecutors started the case for that reason," Buksman said.
"The prosecutor (Voikin) is now maintaining his claims in an appeal court for that very reason," Semchishin added.
However, Hindus have dismissed the prosecutors' claim, saying these were "twists" being given for public consumption.
"The prosecutors have based their appeal on the lines of the same arguments they placed before the lower court -- that the book is extremist and spread hatred against non-believers," Mikhail Frolov, the advocate for Hindus in the case, told IANS from Moscow. He pointed out to Semchischin's remarks that the prosecutor is maintaining his claims on Bhagavad Gita in the appeal too.
"In reality, the prosecutors are seeking a ban on Bhagavad Gita. They do not want to see the tradition related to commentaries on the Bhagavad Gita," Mr Goswami said.
Interestingly, Krishna devotees in Russia held a conference on Bhagavad Gita in Tomsk on March 1, ahead of the appeal in the case coming up before the higher court. Scholars, a majority of them Russian, came out strongly in support on 'Bhagavad Gita As It Is' and condemned the prosecutors' attempts to ban it.
In another effort to drum up support, a group of 20 Russian scholars on India wrote an open letter to Kremlim duo, Dmitry Medvedev and president-to-be Vladimir Putin, to take personal interest relating to the controversy and get the prosecutors' attempts to get Bhagavad Gita ban dropped.
"The book does not contain any signs of extremism and does not incite hatred on ethnic, religious or any other grounds. On the contrary, the book written in the commentary tradition of Bengali Vaishnavism, one of the most popular branches of Hinduism, is considered sacred by a section of believers," the scholars said.
The scholars warned that the trial "discredits Russia's cultural and democratic credentials in the eyes of the civilised world and is driving a wedge in Russian-Indian relations."

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UP polls: State records 62 per cent voting in final phase

Lucknow:  Voting in the seven-phased Assembly elections in the politically sensitive state of Uttar Pradesh was at all time high recording an overall turnout of around 60 per cent with the last phase today registering 62 per cent polling.

Polling in the staggered month-long exercise whose outcome is being keenly watched was marked by sporadic incidents of violence.

"The turnout in Uttar Pradesh was highest at around 60 per cent, recording an increase of 30.23 per cent over the 2007 turnout," Chief Election Commissioner S Y Quraishi told reporters in Delhi.

UP had recorded a turnout of only 46.07 per cent in the previous assembly polls in 2007. The highest voter turnout so far was in 1993 when 57.13 per cent voters cast their ballots.

Quraishi thanked the voters for exercising their franchise and making a historic turnout in UP this time.

He said the turnout of women increased by 42.77 per cent, as compared to the last time. Of the total women electors, a total of 59.85 per cent women came out to vote in the 2012 assembly polls, against 41.92 per cent who voted in the 2007 polls.

"It is more than the turnout of men which is 57.82 per cent," said Quraishi, adding that "this is specially significant in view of the adverse gender ratio of voters in UP which is 816 women to 1,000 men".

Polling for the 60 seats, nearly half of which were bagged by BSP last time, in the ten districts began at 7 AM today and 62.04 per cent polling was registered till 5 PM, Chief Electoral Officer Umesh Sinha said.

In the last phase of polling today, several prominent leaders, including MP Jaya Prada, BJP national general secretary Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, Union Minister of State Jitin Prasad, MP Mohd Azharduddin and SP leader Azam Khan cast their votes.

Chief Electoral Officer Umesh Sinha said that a maximum 67.25 per cent voting was registered in Jyotiba Phule Nagar district followed by 65.88 per cent in Pilibhit.

Bheemnagar registered 61 per cent, Bareilly 61.33 per cent, Bijnore 62 per cent, Shahjahanpur 61.33 per cent, Mordabad 61.83 and Badaun 59.17 per cent.

In Badaun, JD(U) candidate for Shekhupura seat Sanjeev Gupta was assaulted allegedly by SP supporters in Ujhani area.

In another incident, BJP and Congress men gheraoed a police station after some workers were detained.

Following the incident, deputy Superintendent of Police Rafeeq Ahmad was removed from the election duty.

Trouble started when the DySP allegedly assaulted some booth workers of BJP and Congress and took them to police station after which candidates of both the parties protested along with their supporters.

In the last phase, the fate of 962 candidates, including some political veterans in the 10 districts of Bijnore, Moradabad, Bheem Nagar, Rampur, Jyotiba Phule Nagar, Badaun, Bareilly, Pilibhit, Shahjahanpur and Lakhimpur was decided.

At a booth in Jahangirabad in Sahaswan seat of Badaun sitting MLA D P Yadav had a dispute with security forces after being prevented from entering it with supporters.

Besides Samajwadi Party's Muslim face Mohammad Azam Khan, who is contesting from Rampur, the fate of minister Omvati in the Mayawati government from Nagina, BSP MP Jugal Kishore's son Saurabh from Kasta and Rastriya Parivartan Dal head D P Yadav, considered heavyweight from Sahsawan seat, were sealed today.

This phase was earlier scheduled for February four last but was later postponed to March three.

The influence of BJP MP from Aonla Maneka Gandhi, her son and BJP MP from Pilibhit Varun Gandhi, Union Minister and MP from Dhaurara seat in Lakhimpur, Jitin Prasad and Congress MP Azharuddin in their constituencies were tested in the final phase.

In the 2007 assembly polls, BSP had bagged 27 of these seats, while SP and BJP had got 17 and nine seats, respectively.

Around 57 per cent polling was recorded in the last six phases of the elections to the 403-member UP assembly which started on February 8 with the stakes being high for Mayawati's ruling BSP which is facing a tough challenge from Congress, BJP and SP.

An impressive 62 to 64 per cent turnout was registered in the first phase covering 55 seats. Nearly 59 per cent voting was registered in 59 seats for the second phase of February 11.

The third phase on February 15 saw a turnout of around 57 per cent in 56 seats. The next phase on February 19, covering Rae Bareli and Amethi, strongholds of Nehru-Gandhi family, also registered a turnout of over 57 per cent.  

The fifth and the sixth phase on February 23 and 28 recorded 59 per cent polling in 49 seats and 68 seats respectively.

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