-The Deccan Herald The Central Information Commission (CIC) has warned government officials against denying information to an Right to Information (RTI) applicant on the ground that the fee has been wrongly deposited in the name of an officer or has been forwarded through a particular mode. Chief Information Commissioner Satyananda Mishra said the officials could not make these excuses in dealing with RTI applications. “We would only like to place it on record...

At a time when the Congress-led UPA government has been battling with Team Anna over a comprehensive anti-corruption legislation, the Central Information Commission (CIC) has taken on the government and the judiciary over the transparency issue saying not even a single public authority has been following disclosure norms.  Even six years after the implementation of the Right to Information Act 2005, the final appellate authority for the legislation feels that the...

SHEILA DEVI, 54, of Nangal Kalan village in Haryana’s Sonepat district cannot comprehend how Taneja Developers and Infrastructure Ltd (TDI) procured her two-acre plot in 2004, ‘signed’ with thumb impressions of her husband Narender Singh, who died in 2002 and his brother Bhupender, who went missing the next year. The documents are obviously forged. But how did a farmers’ family get cheated in Haryana, where the land acquisition policy formed in...

The new RTI rules framed and implemented by the Chhattisgarh government is a clear attempt and snatching a citizen’s fundamental right of access to information and strangulating the RTI Act. Citizens are requested to sent protest letters in large numbers The Right to Information Act (RTI) is being clipped by several state governments in an attempt to discourage/refuse rightful information to the citizens. Instead of furthering transparency, which is the primary...

-The Greater Kashmir   Opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) today accused the Jammu and Kashmir government of institutional incompetence which is slowly rendering the Right to Information Act a "toothless tiger" in the state. "The manner in which hurdles are deliberately being created to avoid effective RTI implementation apparently points to only conclusion that the government and its administration are hell bent on avoiding answers as it fears that Genie may come out...