The suspended Gujarat cadre IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt has requested President Pratibha Patil to direct the Central government to set up a two-member inquiry commission to inquire into the role and conduct of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and other Ministers and the adequacy of the administrative measures taken to deal with the aftermath of the Godhra train carnage in the State in 2002. In a letter to Ms. Patil released...

-The Economic Times   What's common between foggy movements of two army battalions, the government auditor's assessments of large notional losses to the exchequer and a letter from the army chief to the PM on his unit's preparedness for war?  The information in each of these instances in the past six months was marked 'secret' in official files, but screamed its way to the public, forcing the government into damage-control mode.  Information leaks in...

That the RTI has become a tightly wedged thorn in the government’s side, punching holes to expose corruption and highlight the government’s inefficiency is no shocker. What is, however, is the Maharashtra government’s recent underhanded amendment of RTI in the state through two notifications in January 2012 without any public consultation. A notification dated 16 January, restricts both the number of subject matter and words in an application such that a...

RTI activists in Haryana have decided to protest against the appointment of bureaucrats as state information commissioners (SIC) directly after their superannuation "without transparency". They have also planned to move the Punjab and Haryana high court against the appointment of outgoing chief secretary, Urvashi Gulati as the SIC. Urvashi Gulati's husband Naresh Gulati is chief state information commissioner while her elder sister, Meenaxi Anand Chaudhry had also been state information...

-The Times of India   Health services in the state are likely to get a new fillip with 388 regular doctors being appointed and posted in rural parts of the state. Appointment Letters were handed over to the doctors by chief minister Arjun Munda at a function organized by state health department and Jharkhand Rural Health Mission (JRHMS) at the Reproductive and Child Health Centre, Namkum on Thursday. Handing over the Appointment Letters...