-The Hindu When a new Chief Information Commissioner is appointed, he or she will find a mammoth 10,000 Right to Information appeals pending. The new government's delay in appointing a new chief has led to the pendency shooting up, much of it surrounding new policy decisions taken by the government. The Chief Information Commissioner heads the Central Information Commission, the body that hears appeals from information-seekers who have not been satisfied...

-Economic and Political Weekly The National Democratic Alliance government has constituted the IPR Think Tank which, among other things, is to draft the National Intellectual Property Rights Policy. India may not have a policy per se but it has a strong legislation on IPRs, a functioning patents office and mechanisms to grant patents as well as protect consumer interests. The Think Tank has other issues it needs to address, but is...

-The Hindu They have neither sought review of CIC ruling nor challenged it in court Seventeen months after the Central Information Commission ruled that the Right To Information Act applied to six national political parties, none of them has complied with the Act or appealed against it. A full Bench of the commission, comprising Information Commissioners Vijai Sharma, Sharat Sabharwal and Manjula Prasher, had posted a hearing on the parties' non-compliance with its...

-Business Standard The committee has suggested an umbrella law to help set up new national and state-level regulators that would also take the powers of the existing pollution control boards The T S R Subramanian committee, constituted about three months ago to review laws related to environment and forest protection, has recommended some big-ticket changes to the rules and legislation. These include a complete overhaul of certain laws, special fast-track dispensation...

-The Business Standard The Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government, like its United Progressive Alliance (UPA) predecessor, seems to be failing on suo motu disclosures under the Right To Information Act (RTI). The department of personnel & training (DoPT) had last month issued an official memorandum directing all central ministries and departments to upload replies to RTI applications and first appeals on their respective websites from October 31. This had...