-The Hindu Prime Minister’s statement has disturbing implications for implementation of the Act, say civil society activists Civil society activists have decided to launch a nationwide campaign in case there are attempts by the Government to dilute the Right to Information Act, 2005. Prime Minister manmohan singh, while inaugurating the 7 annual convention of the Central Information Commission on Friday, had cautioned against misuse of the transparency law and suggested “the citizens’...

-The Times of India The government is set to step up its push for cash transfer of subsidies and adopt it as a policy doctrine in the run-up to elections, with two pilot projects validating the assumption that it would lead to significant savings for the government while enhancing benefits for users. A pilot project for cooking gas in Mysore run by state-run oil companies saw the number of connections dropping 40%...

-DNA "Frivolous and vexatious” — these were the words that Prime Minister manmohan singh used while addressing this year’s edition of the annual Right To Information (RTI) convention. His choice of words raises several disturbing questions. The PM conveniently ignored the fact that there is no legal definition of what constitutes “frivolous and vexatious” and there is unlikely to be one in the future. Will one person’s understanding of “frivolous” be...

-The Economic Times Retail sector liberalisation has been revived and included in Prime Minister manmohan singh's package of big-bang reforms announced recently. This was to be expected as an element of the package since the influential minister Jairam Ramesh, who has access to Sonia Gandhi and is identified with her NGO-dominated set of advisers whose knowledge of economics is outweighed by their enthusiasm, had already announced his conversion to retail sector...

-The Hindustan Times Claiming that citizens would be deprived of a transparent and accountable system, activists have vehemently protested Prime Minister manmohan singh’s opinion about the ‘frivolous and vexatious” use of the RTI Act and how it can be a problem for public private partnerships (PPP).   The PM’s remarks followed the Supreme Court and the Central Information Commission’s criticism of frivolous RTI applications. “The RTI Act has been used and owned by the...