-The Hindu   A letter to the Prime Minister on the importance of a ‘near-universal PDS.' July 21, 2011 Dr. Manmohan Singh Prime Minister of India Respected Prime Minister, We are a group of research scholars and student volunteers who have just spent three weeks surveying the Public Distribution System (PDS) around the country. We are writing to share a few thoughts on the National Food Security Act in the light of this experience. Our survey covered...

The Central government exempts the CBI from the Right To Information Act's purview without seeking Parliament's approval. THE Right to Information Act, 2005, originally exempted 18 public authorities under the Central government from disclosure of information. Section 24 of the Act provided this exemption to intelligence and security organisations specified in the Second Schedule of the Act, and permitted the Central government to amend the Schedule, by notification in the...

WITH GOVERNMENT agencies like the CBI, NIA and NATGRID having escaped the RTI scanner, publicprivate ventures too are trying to slink away even as activists rally to include them under the Act. After the Central Information Commission (CIC) ruled on 30 May that Mumbai International Airport (Private) Limited (MIAL) is a public authority, the company was set to be the first Public- private Partnership (PPP) to be brought under RTI....

-IANS   The Delhi High Court on Wednesday issued notice to the central government on a public suit filed against the decision to exempt theCBI and the NIA from the purview of the RTI Act, the country's transparency law. A division bench of chief justice Dipak Mishra and justice Sanjeev Khanna issued notice to the central government, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the National Investigation Agency (NIA), the home and law...

-The Deccan Herald   "CBI can’t be equated with other agencies." The Union cabinet’s recent decision to exclude the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) from the purview of the Right to Information (RTI) Act is wrong and, as widely suspected, ill-motivated. The CBI has been trying to secure such an exemption for long for wrong reasons. The cabinet has acted according to the wishes of the investigative agency and notified its decision. The...