Nikhil Dey, co-convenor of the National Campaign for People’s Right to Information (NCPRI), has said that Team Anna’s opposition to the Grievance Redressal Bill is outdated as it seems to be based on the older version of the Bill which is available on the Internet.   The din over the Lokpal — which is at best a “huge police agency that will send people to jail” — he says, has drowned the...

-India Education Diary   Top-level academics from India and abroad, policy makers and education experts will unfold their experiences and strategies for an effective implementation of the historic Right to Education (RTE) Act and explore and identify critical issues in the education sector at a national conference that gets under way here on Wednesday (Dec. 21). The day-long conference, titled 'Catalysing Education for All: Intention, Innovation, and Implementation', is being organized by...

The government’s desperate race to redraft the Lokpal bill in time for passage this Parliament session has left political circles uneasy, with even some Opposition leaders conceding the dangers of lawmaking under such abnormal pressure. The Centre too is squirming at this “indecent haste”, prompted by its keenness to avoid another face-off with Team Anna. But it feels it has little choice in a political climate where “confrontationism” is giving the...

-KashmirDispatch.com   The government of India has refused to furnish a copy of Kashmir interlocutors' report to a top Right To Information (RTI) campaigner in Jammu and Kashmir. Jammu and Kashmir RTI movement convener, Dr Raja Muzaffar Bhat had sought a copy of interlocutor' report, but the Ministry of Home Affairs denied the request. The application for the report was filed by Dr Bhat on November 17, 2011 under the RTI Act 2005 of...

-The Indian Express Shanti Bhushan — Supreme Court advocate, Team Anna member, self-appointed representative of civil society and self-anointed crusader against corruption — stares at the prospect of having to speak for himself, and his son Jayant, again. An Uttar Pradesh government audit has resurrected the controversial Noida farmhouse scheme, whereby the Bhushans, along with others, had been allotted farmhouse plots at reportedly a fraction of the market rate. The audit...