In Maharashtra, attacks on citizen-activists have increased with the greater use of RTI; four activists have been killed in the last seven months IN the late 1970s, a woman named Shobha Shirodkar was the victim of a hit-and-run in Mumbai. It was no accident. It was a case of murder because Shobha, who was the principal of a prestigious school in the city, had opposed the land mafia and was believed...

In the five years of the Right to Information Act, activists who use it have faced reprisal across the country. OCTOBER 2010 marks the fifth anniversary of the Right to Information (RTI) Act. The Act and its implementation have been described in both administrative circles and civil society as “revolutionary” , “a blow for transparency”, “a check on corrupt practices” and “a people's intervention tool with tremendous impact”. Social activists and...

The 2010 Seeds Bill that has been introduced in Parliament does address some of the major concerns in the aborted 2004 version, but strangely a number of important correctives – on regulation, consistency and punishment – that had been incorporated in the 2008 version (which lapsed in 2009) have now been modified or dropped altogether. What forces are pushing the government to act against the interests of India’s farmers? The third...

Concerned over large population still suffering from poverty and hunger, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Sunday said more efforts were required to achieve higher productivity and growth in the farm sector that would ensure food security to the people of this country. "I am happy that the growth rate of our agriculture has increased substantially in the last few years. But we are still far from achieving our goal. We...

EVEN as the fate of Bt brinjal hangs in balance, the parliamentary standing committee attached to the agriculture ministry has started examining the pros and cons of introducing genetically-modified food in India, with a panel of experts coming out in favour of setting up a regulatory mechanism to monitor their implications. At the first meeting of the parliamentary panel on the sensitive subject here this afternoon, three experts, including Delhi...