statesman news service
NEW DELHI, 12 JUNE: A day after the CBI booked Mr Naveen Jindal and former Union minister of state for coal, Mr Dasari Narayana Rao, in the coal allocation scam, the government finally allowed the agency to question the former coal secretary, Mr H C Gupta.
The government had earlier denied the CBI permission to question Mr Gupta, who is now a member of the Competition Commission of India, a government agency that reports to the ministry of corporate affairs.
Mr Gupta was the coal secretary and headed the screening committee which was assigned the job of allocating coal blocks. According to sources, the CBI is soon going to summon Mr Gupta and the Congress MP, Mr Jindal, to join the probe into irregularities of allocation of coal blocks.
The CBI is also going to seek permission to question a few more senior officers who had handled files relating to coal block allocations when they were in the Prime Minister’s office and the coal ministry.
According to sources, the CBI has shortlisted half a dozen officers of the PMO and coal ministry who would be asked to join the investigation.  While the CBI had initially received a negative response from the government, it took a stern stand and insisted upon questioning of senior officers involved in the coal block allocations. 
In a further embarrassment to the government, the CBI yesterday booked Mr Dasari Narayana Rao and Mr Jindal.
Sensing the mood of the agency, the government quietly permitted it to question Mr Gupta. The agency is also ‘hopeful’ that it would soon get more permission to grill officers involved in the coal block allocations.
The agency had started its investigation into the coal block allocation case after the adverse remarks in a CAG report that claimed a revenue loss of Rs 1.86 crore by not auctioning the coal blocks. The agency has so far registered 11 cases relating to irregularities in the allocation of coal blocks.

tarun goswami
KOLKATA, 12 JUNE: Letters written by various state government departments to the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) never reach their destinations as civic employees do not open them.
Important letters lie scattered on the floor of the KMC’s main building on SN Banerjee Road as the mail boxes are stuffed with letters which include hundreds written by aggrieved municipal tax payers. Recently, the municipal commissioner Mr Khalil Ahmed picked up some of the letters that lay scattered on the floor and realising their urgency, ordered officials to open the letter boxes. It was found that many of the letters had reached the KMC at least two years ago.
Litterateur Buddhadeb Guha would be shocked to know that his letter written to the then municipal commissioner Mr Alapan Bandopadhyay expressing his satisfaction over the production quality of Purasree, KMC’s Bengali journal, did not get to the addressee. The letter reached the KMC on 1 June, 2007. Seeing Guha’s name on the envelope, KMC employees opened the letter last week.
A letter from the state legal services authority to the chairman of borough VI Mr Iqbal Ahmed remained undelivered. The KMC received the letter on 5, September, 2012. Again, another letter written by the divisional railway manager, Eastern Railway, Sealdah also did not reach the addressee. The letter came to the KMC on 3 June this year. An urgent letter from the Fisheries department, sector V, Salt Lake came to the KMC on 12 May. But till date the letter has not reached the office of the Assessor-Collector, Jadavpur unit. The KMC head office is supposed to send it to the Jadavpur unit. The general secretary of the Sardar Patel Memorial Committee wrote a letter to the executive engineer borough VI which reached the KMC on 25 May, 2012. But the letter never reached him.
An aggrieved resident of east Kolkata,  Mr AK Sarkar of P- 229, CIT scheme, VII- M, Kolkata 54 wrote a letter to the assessor collector (North) on 1 June this year. The letter lay on the floor before being rescued by some civic officials.
When contacted, senior officials of the information department said they do not have adequate staff to sort the letters and so they are left on the floor unattended.
"So we ask people, government agencies and private firms to send letters by courier specifying the department to avoid misplacement," said senior officials.

Ronaldo bid
Monaco are ready to make a world record €100m (£85m) bid for Real Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo. Ronaldo has just two years left on his contract at Madrid and is known to be disillusioned with life at the Santiago Bernabeu, at the end of his fourth season there. The Ligue 1 club, funded by Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev, have already spent over £110m this summer on Radamel Falcao of Atletico Madrid and James Rodriguez and Joao Moutinho of Porto. They are now prepared to make their boldest move yet, taking advantage of the Portuguese forward’s frustration at Madrid, and failure to sign a new deal, to tempt him to join with a world record salary offer of €20m (£17m) per year. Monaco are closely monitoring Ronaldo’s negotiations with Real Madrid over a contract extension, and if no deal is done by late July or August they will make their move.
the independent
(details on page 11)

Rupee recovers
MUMBAI, 12 JUNE: Fitch today revised India’s outlook from “negative to stable”. The instant positive impact of the late afternoon development was felt on the currency market where the beleaguered partially convertible rupee appreciated significantly in final deals against the US dollar. It ended the day up 60 paise at 57.79 against Tuesday’s closing of 58.39. sns (see pg 9)

No more telegrams
TIRUCHIRAPALLI, 12 JUNE: Smart phones, emails and SMS seem to have pushed the humble telegram service to a quiet corner with the BSNL deciding to discontinue the 160-year-old telegraph service from 15 July.
Once the main source of quick and urgent communication, the service delivered many happy and sad news to people spread all over the country. pti
         (details on page 3)