Right to Information (RTI) Activists from Pune came together on Sunday and formed an RTI council to serve as a repository of information obtained by various Activists. “Once the information obtained by anyone under the RTI is available with a council, there will be less threat to an individual’s life,” said Vivek Velankar, an RTI Activist, while speaking to journalists after a public meeting to demand justice for the murdered RTI...

Three persons were sent on Saturday to police custody till January 25 in connection with the murder of RTI Activist Satish Shetty (39). The three were identified as Vijay Dabhade, Parshuram Telugu and Pramod Waghmore. “Dabhade is a lawyer, Waghmore is a clerk in his office, while Telugu was one of Dabhade’s clients,” Bhausaheb Andhalkar, an officer of the Pune Rural police’s local crime branch heading one of the five...

BHUBANESWAR: Widespread protests marked the visit of Minister of State for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh, to a national consultation on commercialisation of Bt brinjal. In a novel method of registering their resentment to attempts to allow commercial production of Bt brinjal in the country, hundreds of women under the banner of Orissa Nari Samaj (ONS) took out a funeral procession of Bt brinjal. They set a model of Bt...

No practice has been violated in seeking sanction for grant of a daily allowance by the Union government to the spouse of Chief Justice of India K.G. Balakrishnan, Supreme Court Secretary-General (SG) said on Friday. The statement came in response to a reply furnished by the Law Ministry to RTI Activist Subash Chandra Agrawal that the SG recently requested revised sanction allowing a daily allowance to the CJI’s spouse for...

Winner of a national award for Bitter Chocolate, an eye-opener book on child sexual abuse, author-Activist Pinki Virani tells Nandita Sengupta the nation has let down its children in the Ruchika Girhotra case. You have said that government response to the Girhotra case is appalling. In the national outrage on Ruchika, government has missed the woods for the trees. I'm appalled that the law minister says we will now strengthen...