-ThePrint.in Over 15 lakh candidates had applied for the 28,915 vacancies announced by the UP Police Recruitment and Promotion Board in 2015. New Delhi: A recent notification by the Uttar Pradesh government announcing recruitment results for the police force came with a curious caveat: No information pertaining to the results will be provided under the RTI. This is a blatant violation of the RTI Act, which mandates every public body to be transparent...

-The Hindu Social audits ensure a citizen-centric mode of accountability The breakdown of institutions has underlined the fact that democracy — and especially public funds — need eternal public vigilance. But in India, the elites close ranks to neutralise voices of dissent and alarm, thus preventing public vigilance. Democratic governance needs the citizen to be legally empowered to ask questions, file complaints, and be a part of the corrective process. Social audits, as...

-The Hindu Telangana’s experience is instructive The institutionalisation of “social audits” to ensure implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) has been challenging. Since being included in the 2005 Act at the behest of social movements, social audits have been ineffective in most parts of the country due to government indifference. So far, 26 States have created social audit units (SAUs), but the Comptroller and Auditor General’s (CAG’s) detailed guidelines...

-Hindustan Times A 6% fall between 2015-16 and 2016-17 was reported in RTI applications filed with the 1,950 public authorities of the Central government, which receives maximum information applications followed by Maharashtra and Karnataka. The right to information law meant to empower Indians and bring transparency in governance appeared to be losing steam with the number of queries going down mainly because of stone-walling of information by officials and slow disposal of...

-The Hindu New Delhi: Reena, a single mother, has been unable to acquire Scheduled Caste certificates for her children as her RTI (Right to Information) application filed in 2016, still remains unanswered. “I had applied for Scheduled Caste certificates for my children but was told by the Revenue Department that the caste certificate of the father needs to be provided. In 2016, I filed the RTI application seeking information on the documents...