-The Indian Express SCOPE seeks list of ‘habitual seekers of queries’ from public sector enterprises, former CIC says existing RTI law does not allow such segregation Central public sector companies are trying to identify people who repeatedly use the Right to Information (RT) route to ferret out information from them. Companies are trawling their records about such people and will match data to draw up a checklist. And they plan to use...

-The Times of India MUMBAI: Often when there is a heavy traffic jam, cabbie Surya Prasad (name changed) turns to a friendly passenger, hands over a blank post card and requests him to write a few words in English addressed to his children residing back home in Khaspur village, near Patna. Even in today's era dominated by cell phones and email, millions of Indians continue to rely on postal services to reach...

-The Indian Express With the spotlight on packaged foods’ failure to clear safety tests, The Indian Express samples 11 states and finds out how ill-equipped and understaffed their labs are. For a processed food market estimated at Rs 7.34 lakh crore by the Annual Survey of Industries, 72 state labs and 68 private ones with National Accrediation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL) accreditation are conducting tests in India’s 640...

-The Hindu The appointments of Vijai Sharma as Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) and K.V. Chowdary as Chief Vigilance Commissioner (CVC), which have been a long time coming, also raise some concerns about the Narendra Modi government’s level of engagement with institutions that form the life breath of Indian democracy. The CIC presides over the Right to Information, crucial to a participatory democracy in making institutions accountable, while the CVC is tasked...

The fourteenth Public Accounts Committee (2014-15) report, submitted to the 16th Lok Sabha in April this year, has found that despite various interim orders issued by the Supreme Court from time to time (based on a writ petition that was filed by People’s Union for Civil Liberties in April, 2001), the Government of India has failed to universalize the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) scheme. This means India has to...