-Tehelka TEHELKA decodes five points for its readers from the “historical bill” tabled in the Delhi Assembly, which has been overlooked during the entire hullabaloo. Anna Hazare, the face of the anti-graft movement, had extended his support to the Delhi Janlokpal Bill 2015. His support comes at the time when former aides, Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav, had publically trashed the bill as ‘mahajokepal’. Suspended BJP leader OP Sharma, in conversation with...
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Time to abolish criminal defamation
-The Hindu The observation by the Supreme Court that political leaders should not take criticism as a personal insult highlights a particular kind of intolerance that is rarely referred to in the ongoing debate on the subject: the inability of public figures to tolerate criticism and their repeated resort to criminal defamation proceedings to stifle adverse comment. Nothing exemplifies this as much as the 100-odd prosecutions launched by the government of...
More »A decade of RTI: All you need to know about the game changing law
-Hindustan Times Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday is addressing a convention on the 10th-anniversary celebrations of the Right to Information (RTI) Act which was brought in ‘to promote transparency and accountability in the working of every public authority’. As the act completes a decade of existence, here is how (and why) it changed the way the government and Public Servants function: 1. What is RTI? A law that empowers every citizen to seek...
More »Decade on, why RTI needs a second revolution -Satyananda Mishra
-The Indian Express A number of significant disclosures were forced by the RTI, including the information regarding 2G and Commonwealth Games and so on. The Right to Information Act is now 10 years old — long enough to give us a fair idea of how it has performed on the ground. Riding on a huge wave of civil society activism, it started on a positive note and made unexpected impact early...
More »Children of a different law -G Sampath
-The Hindu A recent sting video shows the men acquitted in the Laxmanpur Bathe case boasting about the same massacre. Will the passing of the Prevention of Atrocities (Amendment) Bill finally change the way justice is delivered to Dalits? On the night of December 1, 1997, in Laxmanpur Bathe, a village in Bihar’s Arwal district 90 km from Patna, 58 Dalits were slaughtered by a gang of dominant caste men that went...
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