A report of the Comptroller and Auditor General tabled in the Telangana assembly on Monday painted a picture of strained public finances in the state during 2024-25, marked by under-utilisation of the budget, poor revenue mobilisation, rising debt, and irregularities in tax administration.. CAG report on Telangana’s fiscal performance in FY25 flags debts, budget underutilisation. The report pointed out that while the government managed to keep the fiscal deficit broadly within projected levels through borrowings, the widening revenue deficit and increasing debt burden could remain a matter of concern for the state’s fiscal sustainability.. According to the report, the Telangana government was unable to utilise its budget in line with the targets set for the 2024-25 financial year, spending only ₹2,18,251 crore against the ₹2,74,058 crore projected in the budget under revenue and capital expenditure, which amounted to 80%.. Under the revenue expenditure, the government had estimated spending ₹2,20,945 crore, but actual spending stood at ₹1,77,224 crore, which was also about 80% per cent of the estimate.. In contrast, under capital expenditure, the government had proposed to spend ₹33,487 crore, but ended up overspending by 108%, with a total of ₹36,072 crore spent in the current financial year.. The report also pointed out that the government had projected ₹17,730 crore towards its interest payment obligations in the year. However, the actual burden was much higher, with the state paying ₹27,803 crore.. Similarly, under the salary and allowances bill for government employees, the government had budgeted ₹28,093 crore, but had to spend ₹30,277 crore, leaving little room for development, welfare spending.. The CAG also pointed out sharp shortfall in revenue receipts. The state had expected ₹2,21,242 crore in revenue receipts, but the actual collections stood at ₹1,67,804 crore, 76% of the estimate.. The shortfall was particularly severe in non-tax revenue and grants expected from the Centre. Under non-tax revenue, the government had projected collections of ₹35,208 crore, but realised only ₹23,608 crore, or 67% of the estimate.. Likewise, the state had anticipated receiving ₹21,636 crore in grants from the Central government, but actually received only 37% of that with ₹7,913 crore.. The government had originally projected that revenue receipts would exceed revenue expenditure, resulting in a modest revenue surplus of ₹297 crore. However, the state ended up with a revenue deficit of ₹9,420 crore.. At the same time, the state had estimated a fiscal deficit of ₹49,256 crore. The actual fiscal deficit was found to be ₹48,922 crore, broadly in line with projections. The government bridged this deficit by raising ₹48,922 crore through open market borrowings.. The report said the state raised a total of ₹65,537 crore in open market loans during 2024-25. This figure included ₹ 5,842 crore of unpaid old Ways 

 In 1757, Mir Jafar helped change the course of the subcontinent’s history when he sided with the British against his employer, the Nawab Siraj-ud-Daulah. The East India Company won the Battle of Plassey, using it as a springboard to conquer India’s heartland, and eventually, the whole country. Robert Clive, the company’s army commander, installed Mir Jafar as the titular Nawab, who ruled till his death in 1765.. Descendants of Mir Jafar, Bengal’s Nawab after Battle of Plassey, deleted from electoral roll. Almost three centuries later, Jafar’s descendants find themselves running from pillar to post after their names were deleted from the electoral roll during the special intensive revision (SIR) in West Bengal. The reason: changes in the names of some family members.. “Our ancestors built the Hazarduari Palace and other structures that define Murshidabad. Yet, our names have been struck off,” said Syed Mohammad Fahim Meerza, a descendant of Mir Jafar and a Trinamool Congress councillor at Murshidabad municipality.. The eldest member of the family, 82-year-old Syed Mohammad Reza Ali Meerza, popularly addressed as Chhote Nawab, lives in the historic Killa Nizamat area of Murshidabad town.. His name, the names of his son Syed Mohammad Fahim Meerza, daughter-in-law, and brother Mohammad Abbas Ali Meerza’s two daughters and elder son were removed after they were flagged for “logical discrepancy”.. “The names were deleted although several of the family members responded to hearing notices and provided documents,” Fahim Meerza said.. “My father’s name was changed from Mohammad Reza Ali Meerza to include Syed, and my name was changed from Syed Fahim Meerza to include Mohammad. Put in the ‘under adjudication’ category, we appeared for hearings despite my father’s health issues,” he added.. “We will approach the electoral tribunal but the process is time-consuming. The issue may not be resolved before the assembly elections,” Fahim Meerza said.. In the two-phase Bengal polls to be held on April 23 and 29, Murshidabad will vote first.. Requesting anonymity, a district electoral officer said, “Members of the Nawab’s family have to follow the rules like others.”. Gauri Shankar Ghosh, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Murshidabad legislator seeking reelection, said no deletion was intentional or accidental. “Neither our party nor the EC said names of genuine voters should be removed. A name is deleted for technical reasons. They can seek reinclusion,” Ghosh said. 

 NEW DELHI: The defence ministry on Tuesday signed a ₹1,950-crore deal with Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) to equip the Indian Air Force with two mountain radars, associated equipment and the required infrastructure, strengthening the country’s air defences.. IAFto get mountain radars worth ₹1,950 cr. The contract is the last capital acquisition contract of financial year 2025-26.. This radar is indigenously designed and developed by DRDO’s Electronics and Radar Development Establishment and will be manufactured by BEL. “The installation and commissioning of these radars will boost the country’s air defence and strengthen national security. The procurement will also reduce dependency on foreign equipment,” the defence ministry said.. The contract was signed under the Buy (Indian-IDDM) category. This is the most important category of acquisition for indigenisation under the defence procurement policy. IDDM stands for indigenously designed, developed and manufactured.. According to official data, capital procurement contracts amounting to ₹2.28 lakh crore for 503 proposals were signed during 2025-26. Also, the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) accorded Acceptance of Necessity (AoN) for 55 proposals amounting to ₹6.73 lakh crore during that period. “Both the quantum of AoN given and capital contracts signed so far has been the highest in any given financial year,” the defence ministry said last week.. The DAC, headed by defence minister Rajnath Singh, on Friday approved a military capability boost worth ₹2.38 lakh crore to equip the country’s armed forces with more Russian-origin S-400 Triumf air defence systems, remotely piloted strike aircraft, transport planes, artillery guns and tank ammunition. 

 A man brutally assaulted a four-year-old boy by lifting him up by his legs and slamming him into the ground, thereafter smashing the child’s head on an iron rod.. The incident, which was captured on the CCTV camera, took place in a housing society at Vasai on Monday night. (Screengrab). The accused, an autorickshaw driver, allegedly carried out the violent assault after an argument with the minor’s father in Maharashtra’s Palghar district, PTI news agency cited the police as saying.. In a video footage of the incident, the accused is seen walking towards his autorickshaw, following which he picks the child up from the ground and slams him. The driver is then seen picking the four-year-old up and running inside a building.. The incident, which was captured on the CCTV camera, took place in a housing society at Vasai on Monday night.. The accused was arrested after the incident, police said, according to PTI, while the child was critically injured and taken to the hospital. The four-year-old sustained head injuries and was admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) at a hospital in Mira road and is battling for his life, police added.. “The brutal incident took place around 8 pm on Monday. A minor argument between the accused autorickshaw driver Sandeep Pawar and the child’s father Atul Kondhare took a gruesome turn,” senior police inspector Balkrishna Ghadigaonkar told PTI.. The inspector said the child was playing with other children in the parked autorickshaw when the driver walked out to the three-wheeler. Ghadigaonkar said that after forcefully slamming the child, the driver “rushed inside the building while holding the child, and smashed his head against an iron rod before throwing him to the ground again.”. The inspector said that the assault was carried out solely to avenge a fight he had earlier with the boy’s father over a minor issue.” The accused was remanded to three days of police custody by a local court, after a case was registered against him under ‘attempt to murder’ and other relevant sections of the BNS. 

 A performance audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India has flagged major lapses in welfare delivery for Odisha’s most vulnerable tribal groups, revealing that over half of the Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs) remain excluded from key schemes, while the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme has failed to provide the mandated 100 days of work to 90% of households.. CAG audit exposes gaps in Odisha tribal schemes (Getty/ Representative photo). The report, tabled in the state assembly, highlights that despite hundreds of crores in expenditure, 54% of the PVTG population—approximately 1.60 lakh people—were left out of welfare coverage, as the Micro Project Agencies, the primary institutional mechanism for tribal upliftment, failed to extend basic services to newly notified habitations populated by tribals of 13 PVTGs.. According to the report, a baseline survey in 2018–19 identified 1,138 new villages inhabited by PVTGs, yet these areas remained outside the reach of the Odisha PVTG Empowerment and Livelihood Improvement Programme.. While 18% of these excluded households had access to safe drinking water, gas connectivity reached only 34% of them. In some cases, the report said that entire communities like the Birhors, identified as a PVTG in 1986, remained beyond the reach of benefits because the designated agency had not become functional.. A joint physical inspection of 69 drinking water projects showed that 55% were non-operational. Similarly, 58% of inspected irrigation projects were defunct due to a lack of maintenance and repair funds. In one village, a solar power irrigation project completed in 2022 was found defunct by 2024.. To combat malnutrition, the state established 116 Nutrition Resource Centres, yet 55 of these units built at a cost of ₹3.59 crore were found lying idle because the department failed to plan for operational expenses.. The state spent ₹48.29 crore on 229 processing units (such as oil extraction and dal mills) to boost tribal income. However, the audit found that 46% were non-functional, largely due to a lack of electricity or poor assessment of local capabilities.. The audit of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), a centrally sponsored scheme designed to provide a legal “guarantee” of 100 days of work per year, found that only 6.24% to 11.26% of households that demanded work were actually provided with the full 100 days of employment during the 2019–24 period. In some districts, this figure plummeted as low as 0.20%.. Furthermore, 1.22 lakh households in test-checked districts were denied work entirely, yet the state failed to pay the mandatory “unemployment allowance” required under the Act. The average annual income for households in some districts under the scheme was as low as ₹7,256, providing just 34 days of work. Beneficiaries reported a lack of interest in the scheme due to wages significantly lower than the state