-Huffingtonpost.in Secrecy in amending the RTI Act as well as in the appointment of Information Commissioners in the CIC reveal the government's intention to destroy the spirit of the transparency law. With over 6 million information applications filed every year, the Indian Right to Information (RTI) Act is the most extensively used transparency legislation globally. The law has empowered ordinary citizens to hold the government accountable. It has been used for a...
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RTI request to see RTI Amendment Bill denied -Priscilla Jebaraj
-The Hindu No transparency in appointment process, says petitioner. New Delhi: The Centre has denied a Right to Information Request for a copy of the Right to Information (Amendment) Bill 2018, which had been notified for introduction in the monsoon session of Parliament. The Bill sought to give the Centre power to set the tenure and salaries of State and Central Information Commissioners. Critics worry this could threaten the independence of Commissioners. An...
More »In Jaipur, a question for WhatsApp: How to track the source? -Karishma Mehrotra
-The Indian Express They discussed verification methods through news searches, reverse image searches and fact-checking organisations as well as technical features. The question came up again and again. “If a WhatsApp message comes to the police, how can we find the original sender of the message?” asked Naveen Rana, an IT cell member from the office of the Deputy Commissioner of Police in Jaipur. “If we don’t have the data, how...
More »Outgoing Central Information Commissioner Sridhar Acharyulu interviewed by Priscilla Jebaraj (The Hindu)
-The Hindu Outgoing Central Information Commissioner Sridhar Acharyulu flags the impact of growing vacancies in the Commission Central Information Commissioner Sridhar Acharyulu, who took on the Prime Minister’s Office and the Reserve Bank of India in a case dealing with the non-disclosure of wilful defaulters of major bank loans, warned on his last day hearing RTI appeals that by December, he and three other CICs would retire, leaving the Central Information Commission...
More »RTI Commissioner Sridhar Acharyulu accuses union government of interfering with the independence of CIC -Parth Welankar
-Hindustan Times Acharyulu also expressed his astonishment over the Supreme Court asking the Centre to submit details of the decision-making process of the Rafale deal. He said, “I am surprised that now the Supreme Court has asked the government for the information regarding the decision-making process of the Rafale deal. Technical details of the deal are not important. Besides, why should the SC even ask for this information in the first...
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