-The Times of India The Supreme Court on Tuesday stayed its seven-month-old controversial order directing governments to appoint retired SC and HC judges as heads of Central Information Commission and State Information Commissions. In an interim order passed on a petition by the Union government seeking review of the apex court's September 13, 2012 judgment, a bench of Justices A K Patnaik and Arjan K Sikri also stayed the earlier directive to...

-The Times of India KANPUR: The Public Information Officers (PIOs) at various government departments in the city are having no Knowledge of Right To Information Act (RTI), 2005 and its clauses. Majority of departments have non-law candidates serving the post of PIOs. In the absence of any proper guidance and workshops, these officials face problem in addressing the RTI queries and hence large number of them (RTIs) remain pending. These findings came...

-The Indian Express The Supreme Court on Tuesday stayed its September 2012 ruling that "only" serving and retired judges of the apex court and chief justices of state high courts can head the central and state information commissions. Passing an interim order pending its decision on the review petition filed by the Centre against the verdict, a bench led by Justice A K Patnaik stayed the direction making it mandatory for information...

KEY TRENDS   • According to National Sample Survey report no. 583: Persons with Disabilities in India, the percentage of persons with disability who received aid/help from Government was 21.8 percent, 1.8 percent received aid/help from organisation other than Government and another 76.4 percent did not receive aid/ help *8   • As per National Family Health Survey-4 (NFHS-4), the Under-five Mortality Rate (U5MR) was 57.2 per 1,000 live births (for the non-STs it was 38.5)...

-www.esocialsciences.com and Iris Knowledge Foundation Every third person you meet in an Indian city today is a youth.  In about seven years the median age in India will be 29 years, very likely of a city-dweller, making it the youngest country in the world. The State of the Urban Youth India 2012: Employment, Livelihoods, Skills is published by IRIS Knowledge Foundation (IKF), Mumbai India for the UN-HABITAT Global Urban Youth Research...