Its founder president, Ashok Chauhan, was charged with fraud in the 1990s by authorities in Germany, where he ran a network of companies. He returned to India and was never extradited. A plastics company in the U.S. also sued Chauhan in 1995 for failing to pay $20 million in debts. "They are a subsidiary of a conglomerate of companies," said Barmak Nassirian of the American Association of State College and Universities. "This is by no means reassuring, if you ask me."   read more

By April 2015, starting a new business in India would no longer require multiple trips to different government offices. According to the Economic Times, the government is planning an online approval system for more than 200 permits required for industries from central and state government departments.   read more

At the SAARC summit in Kathmandu, a last-minute deal to create a regional electricity grid finally went through on Thursday. This will buttress Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ambition for an integrated South Asia to become a viable economic counterweight to China.   read more

Voters came out in large numbers on Tuesday to vote in the first phase of the state election in Jammu & Kashmir, ignoring calls by separatist leaders for a boycott. The 15 constituencies that went to the polls in the first phase saw a 71.28% turnout, more than a 5% jump over the 2008 figure. This high turnout is being seen as a result of massive mobilisation by parties as well as a desire for change, and for some voters an attempt to stop the BJP from winning.   read more

India and Nepal have made a significant breakthrough in energy cooperation. Our neighbour has given an Indian company permission to build a 900 megawatt hydropower plant, government officials said on Monday, in a win-win for both sides. The Himalayan state is set to ease its chronic energy shortages by opening up its rivers to Indian companies – this will provide Nepal with free electricity and India with energy for our power-hungry economy,   read more

The Trinamool Congress (TMC) is facing mounting pressure over the Saradha chit fund scam, with one more party MP arrested on Friday, bring to three the number of its leaders behind bars. With growing calls for Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to resign, her party claimed that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) was being used by the central government to “settle political scores”.   read more

With Prime Minister Narendra Modi coming to power in May, the bilateral relationship between India and Israel as gone into overdrive. Two major defence deals have been signed in the past two months as both countries are moving ahead with a commercial and political relationship that is no longer burdened by the unease felt by the previous UPA government over the reaction of the country’s Muslim minority.   read more

Haryana Police have finally arrested controversial religious leader Rampal from his ashram in Hisar with the violent standoff ending on Wednesday night. But the two days of confrontation between thousands of Rampal supporters and the police could have been avoided if the state administration had taken action earlier.   read more

Narayanaswami Srinivasan may have got a clean chit from the Supreme Court over match-fixing, but the court pointed out that he did not take action against a player who had violated the code of conduct. With Srinivasan’s son-in-law Gurunath Meiyappan, IPL COO Sundar Raman and Raj Kundra (co-owner of Rajasthan Royals) indicted for allegedly cronying up to punters, the court needs to restore the public’s faith in cricket by cleaning the Augean stables that is the BCCI.   read more

In Puri, Odisha, reporters were enraged to allegedly find Rs. 200 ($3.30) each in the media kit envelopes provided to them at a press conference addressed by Pinaki Mishra, the ruling Biju Janata Dal MP. Several journalists lodged a police complaint against Mishra and BJD MLA Maheswar Mohanty, accusing them of attempting to bribe the media.   read more

Sub-standard drugs are being blamed for the deaths of 13 women after sterilisation surgery at a family-planning ‘camp’ in Chhattisgarh last weekend, with owners of the factories that produced them being summoned for questioning. But that has not stopped the state government from holding another such ‘camp’ this week, where another woman died after her operation on Monday – the 14th death so far.   read more

The Gujarat Local Authorities Laws (Amendment) Act has been passed by the state assembly and signed by the governor. But a growing controversy over the act’s provision that make non-voting in local body elections a penal offence has forced the Gujarat administration to rethink the bill.   read more

The Rs. 20,000 crore Saradha scam in West Bengal shows no signs of slowing down. A government agency that tracks corporate frauds has reportedly called for a CBI probe against state sports minister Madan Mitra and Kolkata Police chief Surajit Kar Purkayastha. The sports minister allegedly took money from Saradha chairman Sudipta Sen to repair temples in his constituency and to hold a football match in Kolkata featuring Argentine soccer star Lionel Messi.   read more

The choking haze that envelopes Delhi every winter is not just the fallout of Diwali firecrackers or coal-based cooking fires. It is also caused in large part by the burning of crop debris by farmers in the states of Punjab and Haryana that lie north of the capital.   read more

The new Pakistani Taliban group behind the suicide bombing on the Wagah border said the attack was aimed at India as much as Pakistan, suggesting that Indian targets might be next. Ehsanullah Ehsan, a prominent militant and spokesman for Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan Jamaat Ahrar (TTP-JA), claimed that attacks on India were in the pipeline.   read more

It is appalling that women were banned from being employed as make-up artists in Bollywood for the past 59 years; it is even more appalling that one woman’s 5-year battle to end this discrimination took her all the way to the Supreme Court. According to the Indian Express, the country's top court has now ruled that the ban is gender biased and should end.   read more

Air pollution seems to have a direct, negative impact on grain production in India, a study has warned, with projected yields falling by half due to recent increases in smog. According to The Guardian, the finding has implications for global food security as India is a major rice exporter.   read more