-The Hindu With the kernel of the Information Act under threat, the independence of the information commission is in peril When we describe India as a democracy what do we really mean? Are we referring merely to a system of popular sovereignty founded in universal adult franchise? Or are we suggesting something more — perhaps an assurance, grounded in the Constitution, of a set of rights, of the rights, among others, to...

-Livemint.com * An exclusive excerpt from a forthcoming book on the Assam Accord takes a critical look at the NRC crisis * The passage analyses the pros and cons of the debate over a work-permit formula to deal with the situation. One of the foremost thinkers to academically elaborate on the formula (of work permits in Assam) was author–journalist–rights activist Sanjoy Hazarika in Rites of Passage: Border Crossings, Imagined Homelands, India’s East and...

-Down to Earth The National Democratic Alliance government's move is an assault on the independence of information commissioners, writes former Central Information Commissioner M Sridhar Acharyulu Alas! I thought the Narendra Modi government is strong enough after its re-election. But now it is scared of the Right to Information (RTI) and the Chief Information Commission (CIC), as if they are monsters who can harm the power of the powerful rulers. The Information Commissioner...

-Hindustan Times Still, doubts about EVMs have been planted, despite the fact that none of the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machines showed a mismatch with the EVM count. Two months after the declaration of Lok Sabha election results, conspiracy theories about possible tampering of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) are still doing the rounds. That important opposition leaders have demanded a return to paper ballots and even openly supported EVM-rigging...

-The Times of India blog Last week, NDA government succeeded in getting contentious amendments to RTI Act passed by Parliament. Social activist Aruna Roy, who was at the forefront of the movement to persuade Parliament to enact the original law, speaks to Anindo Dey about the development: * The government said the RTI Act amendments set right the anomaly of the Information Commissions, which are statutory bodies, being treated on a par...