The Supreme Court said the RTI Act is not meant to be a “tool for oppression” of public authorities, saying the nation cannot afford to have the honest public official bogged down with all and sundry requests unrelated to corruption. “The nation does not want a scenario where 75 per cent of the staff of public authorities spends 75 per cent of their time in collecting and furnishing information to applicants...

Through every stage of environmental clearance, the Prime Minister's Office and the finance ministry tracked the Rs 54,000-crorePosco integrated steel plant with keen interest even as the environment ministry sidestepped its own reservations to let the project pass, records with TOI show. The records Accessed from the environment ministry do not show any interference from the two quarters but the PMO and the finance ministry followed the case from 2007...

But impractical demands under Act will be counter-productive The right to information is a cherished right. Information and the right to information are intended to be formidable tools in the hands of responsible citizens to fight corruption and to bring about transparency and accountability, the Supreme Court has held. A Bench of Justices R.V. Raveendran and A.K. Patnaik gave this ruling (briefly reported on August 10) while allowing disclosure of answer sheets...

Fighting the insurgency will need careful planning and sustained innovation. But New Delhi seems to have only big sacks of cash and even bigger words. Eleven weeks after the annihilation of an entire company of the Central Reserve Police Force in a Maoist ambush in April 2010 near the village of Tarmetla — the largest single loss India has ever suffered in a counter-insurgency campaign — Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram...

Beware of what you put in your Facebook messages or your tweets. Your friends and followers may not be the only ones reading them. Chances are government sleuths would be vetting these private messages. This follows a home ministry directive to the department of telecom, asking it to "ensure effective monitoring of Twitter and Facebook". While "effective monitoring" has not been defined, sources said the MHA's intention is complete surveillance of...