-The Hindu A recent Supreme Court judgment and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s openly expressed views in favour of privacy have raised concerns that attempts are being made to dilute the spirit of the RTI Act and limit its use. Aruna Roy and Nikhil Dey, the RTI’s movement’s leading lights, share their worries with Vidya Subrahmaniam. * Seven years after its enactment, has the RTI Act even partially fulfilled its objectives? Has it...
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Kejriwal targets Gadkari -Gargi Parsai
-The Hindu "Collusion with Ajit Pawar to get Vidarbha land for his NGO" Training its guns on the Bharatiya Janata Party, India Against Corruption (IAC) on Wednesday alleged that the party president Nitin Gadkari took undue favours from the Maharashtra government in allotment of land acquired from Vidarbha farmers for a “public purpose.” For their generations-old land the farmers were compensated with a paltry sum of Rs. 5,000 per acre in 1981-82. Addressing...
More »It has covered some ground
-The Hindustan Times The big difference within the Cabinet over the land acquisition bill revolves around the role of the state. Since land is to be acquired for infrastructure projects - India is relying on the private sector to come up with half the $1 trillion it will need to build ports, highways and power plants in the next five years - positions on either side of the debate are deeply...
More »Muddling along is no longer an option-Shyam Saran
-The Business Standard The default approach to reform - minimalistic and confused - will lead India into crisis It is encouraging that the Planning Commission has undertaken an innovative exercise in scenario building for the country as part of the Approach to the 12th Five-Year Plan. The results are available in a document titled “Scenarios: Shaping India’s Future”, which can be found on the Planning Commission’s website. The merit of the document...
More »Prime Minister’s pitch sharpens the RTI divide-Pankaj Sharma
-DNA Dr Manmohan Singh rarely speaks his mind and when he speaks, people listen, as claimed by US president Barack Obama. But this time, a rather reserved-in-speech prime minister is at the receiving end for speaking his mind on the Right to Information (RTI) Act from various quarters. At a recent Convention of Central Information Commissioners, Singh cautioned against frivolous and vexatious use of the RTI. While the debate on the uses...
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