-The Economic Times   All public data-from that on glacier meltdowns to monsoon charts to benami land--will be freely available at the click of a mouse with the launch of a national data portal next month. Modeled on US chief information officer Vivek Kundra's Data.gov.us project, the science and technology ministry's portal-- data.gov.in--aims to democratize data, and make the government more "open". "We plan to launch data.gov.in by next month. Once the National...

-The Economic Times   The ninth and final session of the Lokpal Bill drafting committee dispersed with little meeting of minds between civil society representatives and their government counterparts. Forget the six points on which differences have been enumerated; the basic disagreement is on the essential nature of the proposed ombudsman. The civil society representatives seek to create a new body that is all-powerful, gets appointed with minimal participation by the...

Certain provisions in the rules notified under the IT Act cause concern about the security of sensitive personal information. ON April 11, the Union Ministry of Communications and Information Technology notified new rules under the Information Technology Act, 2000, to regulate the use of the Internet. This led to widespread apprehensions that the government and private persons might gain free access to sensitive personal information concerning Internet users. The government, however,...

A recent study finds that selective abortion of girls, especially for pregnancies after a firstborn girl, has increased substantially in India. CENSUS 2011, which brought out several positive features with regard to education, literacy and fertility rates, also confirmed the disturbing trend that had been reported for the first time in the 1991 Census – the increasing gap between the figures for male and female children in the 0-6 age...

The joint committee for drafting the Lokpal bill has, among other things, brought much attention to lawmaking itself. What indeed is the process of enacting a law? And what therein are the points of engagement with citizens and civil society? A government bill may be introduced by a minister, and a private member bill by any member of Parliament. We focus here on government bills, as private member bills have rarely...