-The Times of India CHENNAI: The Madras high court has held that assets details of IAS officers furnished to the government in a sealed cover can be made available under the Right to Information (RTI) Act. Inspection of asset details of the officer concerned can be allowed as well, it further held. An appeal by V Madhav said that on February 12, 2009, he applied to the public information officer...
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The Jairam brand of governance moves from Environment to Rural Development by Priscilla Jebaraj
There will soon be a new set of glass doors at Krishi Bhavan. The newly elevated Cabinet Minister for Rural Development Jairam Ramesh plans to bring the doors — a signature element of his interior décor right from his early days at the Commerce Ministry — to his new office. Over the last two tumultuous years at the Environment Ministry, those doors have symbolised the transparency and accessibility he claims...
More »Public utilities elude the RTI net. The cloak of privacy protects companies by Shonali Ghosal
WITH GOVERNMENT agencies like the CBI, NIA and NATGRID having escaped the RTI scanner, publicprivate ventures too are trying to slink away even as activists rally to include them under the Act. After the Central Information Commission (CIC) ruled on 30 May that Mumbai International Airport (Private) Limited (MIAL) is a public authority, the company was set to be the first Public- private Partnership (PPP) to be brought under RTI....
More »Appeal, appeal, appeal... Pune RTI bench bursts at seams by Partha Sarathi Biswas
The Pune bench of the State Information Commissioner (SIC) has been witnessing a deluge of second appeals. A majority of these appeals, interestingly, have been filed by only a handful of people. Since the establishment of the Pune bench of the SIC in February 2007, 938 second appeals have been filed by 97 individuals. RTI activists claim this habit of filing multiple appeals is a major cause for the rise in pendency...
More »Lokpal: Third draft emerging as civil society debate opens up by Seema Chishti
The current debate on the Lokpal Bill is split along two lines: the UPA’s draft and that of Team Anna Hazare. But now, not just the political establishment, other sections of “civil society” are standing up to call for a wider debate and cautioning against a rush to push any version through. So while the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council may have made it clear that it wouldn’t discuss the Lokpal...
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