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

Ramalinga Raju, the founder of Satyam Computer Services, may have confessed to fraud in his 2009 letter, but the court still took 6 years to convict him and his brother, along with 8 others, in the country’s biggest accounting fraud case.   read more

The government has amended the real estate bill to create a regulator for the industry, to protect homebuyers and curb undeclared ‘black money’ in property transactions. This will boost investor confidence in real estate as well as recover crores of rupees in lost taxable income that goes unreported.   read more

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made it clear that MPs who have a conflict of interest should avoid becoming members of parliamentary committees. This follows a committee shooting down the government’s proposal to increase the size of pictorial warnings on cigarette and beedi packets – it was later revealed that panel member BJP MP Shyama Charan Gupta has a beedi business with an annual turnover of over Rs 200 crore ($32 million).   read more

The Congress party is struggling to defend its missing vice president Rahul Gandhi, who has skipped town during a crucial session of Parliament. He has been missing for over 6 weeks, and sources in his party now claim that Rahul will return to Delhi on April 12. In the meantime, no one really knows where Rahul has been spending his "leave of absence".   read more

The March 31 deadline set by regulators for boosting gender diversity in boardrooms has passed, but more than 100 firms have not complied. As for those that have, many have reportedly installed the female relatives of company bosses with no professional experience.   read more

The new capital of Andhra Pradesh will be called Amaravati, after the historical capital of the 2nd century Satavahana dynasty, Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu announced on Wednesday. The key challenge will be finding the Rs 20,000 crore ($3.2 billion) needed to build a new capital from scratch. Meanwhile, a few NGOs and political parties are already planning agitations against the alleged takeover of fertile land for the project.   read more

Police have arrested around 1,000 aspiring constables for using impersonators to sit their exams for them in Bihar, in the latest cheating scandal to hit the state. Some 50,000 candidates sat the written exams last October, but many of them were not the same ones who turned up for the physical fitness tests.   read more

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has reportedly scaled down his ambitious health care plan after its cost was estimated to be $18.5 billion over five years. According to Reuters, infrastructure spending to boost economic growth has left less funds available for the social sector in the short term.   read more

It has been hailed as a verdict that preserves India’s freedom of speech in the internet age. The Supreme Court struck down a controversial law on Tuesday that gave authorities sweeping powers to jail people for offensive online posts. Section 66A of the Information and Technology (IT) Act had been challenged in the court by law students, bloggers, writers and rights groups.   read more

Delhi Police claimed to have busted a betting syndicate allegedly involved in taking bets during matches in the ongoing cricket World Cup. According to Indian Express, 110 mobile phones and laptops were recovered when police arrested Shanti Swaroop Bhatia, who allegedly provided ball-to-ball betting rates to bookies from his cupboard.   read more

The government achieved a breakthrough in the Rajya Sabha on Friday, with the upper house passing two bills to auction mines that produce minerals such as coal, iron ore and bauxite. This will help reenergise the mining industry that has languished for years. Both bills will replace earlier ordinances promulgated by the government that would have otherwise lapsed by April 5.   read more

The state administration in Bihar seems to have thrown up its hands in despair with over 500 students expelled for cheating in just two days of Class 10 examinations. Seven parents have also been arrested for helping students to cheat. Bihar education minister P K Shahi admitted that holding fair examinations is a big challenge in the state.   read more

The death of a young, upright IAS officer under mysterious circumstances in Bangalore on Monday has triggered protests in Karnataka, with the opposition BJP demanding a CBI probe and questioning the Congress state government’s commitment to protecting honest officials. 36-year old D K Ravi had been involved in several stand-offs with local politicians for confronting the sand mafia in Kolar and for his drive against tax defaulters.   read more

It may well have been a series of clumsy security questions by a few low-ranking policemen, but the three visits of Delhi’s finest to Rahul Gandhi’s home in early March to ask security personnel questions about the opposition leader has been described as 'snooping'. The government denied this and described the security inquiry as routine, of a type faced by BJP leaders in the past.   read more

The swine flu outbreak in India that has already killed more than 1,400 people since December may be even more dangerous than previously thought, with a new U.S. study suggesting that strain of H1N1 virus in India has mutated to become more virulent. But the Health Ministry has disputed these findings, saying the study is based on old data.   read more

The investigation into the coal scam reached its next stage with a court summoning former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday to appear before it on April 8. The Congress party rallied behind Singh, despite this fresh blow to the Gandhi dynasty that was in power till last year.   read more