Withholding Talegaon land deal info sought by friend of slain activist Satish Shetty tantamount to violation of RTI Act, State Info Commission tells government agencies A day after slain RTI activist Satish Shetty's friend and fellow RTI campaigner Arun Mane was attacked, allegedly for pursuing matters that Shetty had been after before his death, the Pune bench of the State Information Commission yesterday issued a pathbreaking order when it asked for...

The Central government's newly proposed RTI rules make its intentions suspect. GOVERNMENTS which have only superficial commitment to the promotion of human rights often come under considerable pressure from within to impose stealthily restrictions on their exercise. They try to introduce such restrictions without much publicity, seek to execute them in a tearing hurry, and couch them in legal jargon. The Central government's proposal to notify the Right to Information...

Right to information (RTI) activists in the city have demanded the state government to invoke section 17 (3) (e) of the RTI Act, 2005, to remove Ramanand Tiwari from the post of state information commissioner (SIC), as his son owns a flat in the controversial Adarsh Housing Society in Mumbai. President of Nagrik Chetna Manch, Maj Gen (retd) SCN Jatar, president of Sajag Nagrik Manch, Vivek Velankar, Surajya Sangharsh Samiti chief...

Indian civil society was dismayed and horror-struck when human rights activist Dr Binayak Sen, who has spent over three decades caring for the poor in tribal areas of central India, was sentenced to life imprisonment for ‘sedition’ along with two others, Piyush Guha and Narayan Sanyal by a Raipur Sessions Court judge.  Protests are taking place everywhere in the country and the members of India’s vibrant civil society, peoples’ movements,...

Vinita Kamte, the wife of slain additional commissioner of police Ashok Kamte who died fighting terrorists during the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai, has been declared the winner of National RTI Award 2010 in the ‘Best RTI Citizen’ category. Right to information activist Satish Shetty, who was murdered in Lonavla, would be honoured posthumously along with 10 RTI activists who were killed recently. The awards ceremony is slated to be held in January...