-PTI NEW DELHI: The finance mnistry has refused to share copy of three reports on the quantum of black money held by Indians inside the country and abroad, saying its disclosure would cause a breach of privilege of Parliament. The then UPA government had in 2011 commissioned these studies by Delhi-based National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP) and National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) as well as the National...
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Dark clouds over the RTI -Aruna Roy & Nikhil Dey
-The Hindu Any move to amend the RTI Act must involve public consultation The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)government has struck another blow against transparency and accountability. Its already negative track record — that has been marked by an unwillingness to operationalise the Lok Pal, the Whistleblowers Act and the Grievance Redress law — has taken another step backwards if one is to go by a single line in item 14 in the...
More »SC lens on information vacuum
-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday issued notices to the Centre, Bengal and seven other states on a petition seeking immediate filling up of the posts in the Central Information Commission and the state information commissions. A bench of Justices A.K. Sikri and Ashok Bhushan sought responses within four weeks on the PIL filed jointly by three RTI activists - Anjali Bharadwaj, Amrita Jorhi and Lokesh K. Batra -...
More »Manoranjan S Roy, RTI activist, interviewed by Ashutosh Sharma (National Herald)
-National Herald He fears for his life and safety of his family, admits the activist from Mumbai, explaining his reluctance to speak to the media and appear on TV. Visiting the national capital for filing his petition before the Supreme Court, Manoranjan S Roy resisted attempts to drag him to TV studios. Life for him had changed ever since his RTI Applications revealed discrepancies between the supply and deployment of Electronic...
More »The Great Transparency 'Jumla'
-Newsclick.in Electoral bonds are neither 'transparent' nor 'anonymous'. In the latest revelation, file notings of the Election Commission of India (ECI) have showed that it had decided against uploading a letter – which talked about its reservations regarding the Finance Act, 2017 and introduction of the electoral bonds – on their website. The notings have been disclosed through a response to an application under the Right to Information Act (RTI) filed by...
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