Due to delay in the appointment of Chief Information Commissioner, the number of pending cases at the Central Information Commission (CIC) have gone up by nearly 1/3rd during the last 9 months. As per information furnished by the website of CIC (accessed on 29 May, 2015), the number of pending cases for disposal was 29,937 as on 22 August 2014, which after 9 months increased to 39,464 as on 22 May,...

-The Indian Express Modi government has damaged the rights-based legislative framework without spelling out what will replace it. No  one in the last two decades has come to power with greater euphoria than the Narendra Modi sarkar. It has taken less than a year for that euphoria to recede and change to disappointment. There are sufficient reasons for this change. The celebrations of the first year in office of  this government are in sharp...

-PTI The Prime Minister-led selection committees could not arrive at a decision on the appointment of chiefs of Central Information Commission (CIC) and Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) at a meeting held on Saturday. There will be another meeting on the issue shortly, official sources said. The meeting was convened at the Prime Minister’s residence and was attended by Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Leader of Congress party in Lok Sabha...

-The Times of India Blog India’s Right to Information (RTI) Act has caught the imagination of people in this country, while being appreciated across the world. A great change has come in India this decade in the power equation between the sovereign citizens of the country and those in power. This change is just beginning and if we can sustain and strengthen it, our defective elective democracy could metamorphose, within the...

-Economic and Political Weekly The RTI is virtually being strangled to death by deliberate delays in appointments. If you find a law uncomfortable, even one that you supported and passed, what should you do? Repealing it would not be politically smart; amending or diluting it will give ammunition to your critics. So the best strategy is to strangulate it, softly and steadily, until it is rendered lifeless and ineffectual. Something like this...