-The Times of India The Goa state information commission(GSIC) recently directed the accounts department to provide salary details of a government employee to his estranged wife. The government employee had filed a divorce plea in court. The wife had sought the details under the Right To Information Act (RTI) so as to claim maintenance but the government employee had urged the accounts department not to furnish his salary details. Having considered at least...

Even as 2011-12 saw Union ministers going on an unprecedented number of foreign trips, the MEA has refused clearance on several grounds for at least 39 proposed trips by 25 Union ministers since June 2009. Some of them are no longer ministers. All these trips, barring one, fell in the official category. The ministers had proposed to travel to destinations such as the US, UK, France, Italy, Japan, Australia and South Africa,...

-PTI Right To Information activist Anil Galgali has asked Anna Hazare to prevail upon Maharashtra Government to cancel the new RTI rules in the state. The new rules stipulate that any request for information must not exceed 150 words, should be related to one subject matter only and if required, separate applications must be made if it relates to more than one topic, Galgali, Chairman of Athak Seva Sangh, said. Amendments in...

-The Telegraph The government today told a Constitution bench that the right to freedom of speech was for the “benefit” of the public, not the media, as it backed the Supreme Court’s attempt to lay down norms for reporting judicial proceedings. “Freedom of speech is not for the benefit of the press but for the benefit of the public,” additional solicitor-general Indira Jaisingh said, marking a shift from the cautious stand the...

LUCKNOW: In a significant order passed by the Central Information Commission, inspection reports of banks can be disclosed under the RTIAct. And, the Reserve Bank of India cannot deny disclosing the report stating that it can have ill-effects on the economy. The CIC's order came in a case pertaining to Kanpur-based United Mercantile Cooperative Bank Ltd. in its order, the CIC stated that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) should disclose...