It has been a long and difficult road to justice for the tribal residents of this village in Tamil Nadu's Dharmapuri district The injustice done to the tribal people of India is a shameful chapter in our country's history. The tribals were called ‘rakshas' (demons), ‘asuras', and what not. They were slaughtered in large numbers, and the survivors and their descendants were degraded, humiliated, and all kinds of atrocities inflicted on...

-PTI   Information given to income tax authorities by assessees does not come under any fiduciary relationship and cannot be denied to an RTI applicant on this ground, the central information commission has ruled. Hearing the plea of Rakesh Kumar Gupta, who sought information on estimated tax evasion figures, the panel rejected the income tax department’s argument about such a relationship. Information commissioner Annapurna Dixit said the fiduciary relation exists when there is scope...

Resistance to disclosure is a phenomenon that is confined not only to the executive. here have been instances where the judiciary has also shown that much of intransigence to the Right to Information Act. It is no wonder that the Chief Justice of India S H Kapadia once said at a function that sunlight is a great disinfectant, but too much of it can burn one as well. Interestingly, in June...

Chief Information Commissioner Satyananda Mishra demanded on Friday that the central information commission be upgraded to the status of a Constitutional authority along the lines of the Election Commission of India and the Comptroller and Auditor General of India. RTI circles interpreted Mr. Mishra's intervention, coming after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's call for a critical look at the Right to Information Act, as an effort to safeguard the Act and the...

-The Economic Times   Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has called for a review of the Right to Information (RTI) Act, one of the UPA's trophy legislations, potentially exposing the government to a fresh stand-off with civil society. Addressing a two-day annual convention of the central information commission here, Singh said the transparency law should not adversely affect deliberative processes in the government and discourage honest, well-meaning public servants from voicing their views. He...