Telecom regulator Trai on Thursday cracked the whip on six telecom players, five of which are new, recommending that the 69 licences given to them be cancelled for not meeting the roll-out obligation. The crackdown comes in the wake of the 2G licence allocation scam, where cheap licences were awarded to new telecom firms in 2008, costing the exchequer a loss of `1.76 lakh crore.

Just two days after he was forced to resign from the Union Cabinet over his involvement in the 2G spectrum allocation scam, former communications minister A. Raja has been decisively nailed by the report of the Comptroller and Auditor-General of India tabled in Parliament on Tuesday. The report found Mr Raja went all out to allocate 2G licences to new players in a process which “lacked transparency and appeared to have been done with the objective of favouring a few firms”.

Further widening its investigation into alleged Commonwealth Games-related irregularities, the income-tax department on Thursday searched the offices of those companies which had contracts for sports tracks, equipment, landscaping and public lighting for the recently-concluded sporting event.

The income-tax department on Tuesday carried out searches at the offices of four business consortiums who were awarded contracts worth `700 crores for “overlays” for the just-concluded Commonwealth Games 2010. BJP leader Sudhanshu Mittal is one of the high-profile individuals whose offices and residence were searched by the tax sleuths.

The high fiscal deficit and the reluctance of the finance ministry to compensate oil companies by way of oil bonds made it necessary for the government to go in for a major reforms in the pricing of the petroleum products.

India was the second fastest growing major economy globally during 2009-10, despite the worst global recession in decades and a crippling drought.

May 11: With the “National Do Not Call Registry” failing to prevent the harassment of consumers by telemarketers, telecom regulator Trai has proposed a “National Do Call Registry”.