-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Central Information Commission (CIC) has rapped the ministry of home affairs after the latter admitted that it did not have data on mercy petitions considered by the President since 1970. The Commission has asked the ministry to disclose the information within four weeks in larger public interest. The order came in response to an application by an under trial lodged in Agra's Central Jail. In...
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Political parties come under RTI, rules CIC -Himanshi Dhawan
-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Lifting the cloak of Secrecy from sources of funding of political parties and their expenditure the central information commission (CIC) has ruled that they are public authorities who now need to respond to RTI queries within six weeks. Political parties on Monday lost the battle to stay out of RTI purview and keep their donors secret after the commission in a 54-page order said six national...
More »From Bofors to 2G, the same fate-Arun Kumar
-The Hindu The parliamentary committees on the howitzer scam and the stock market scandal protected the powerful and failed to fix accountability. The same is true in the spectrum case The current political situation brings back memories of 1989. The Prime Minister then was under a cloud in the Bofors scam. Many of his close associates like Lalit Suri and Ajitabh Bachchan were accused of wrong-doing. Today, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and...
More »Tracking the eye-balls-Prashant Jha
-The Hindu Ask any television journalist why they sometimes behave in the manner they do - aggressive, over-the-top, loud, over simplifying complex issues, whipping jingoism and hysteria with little restraint - and the reaction is unanimous, "This is what sells." Ask any general entertainment channel official why they invest in shows which often reinforce the most conservative and patriarchal of attitudes, and the response is similar, "This is what people...
More »An ecosystem to save, or squander-Madhav Gadgil and Ligia Noronha
-The Hindu Instead of opening a debate on the Gadgil panel's report on the Western Ghats, the government has chosen to sideline and replace it with another by an alternate group This is a challenging time in India's development history where a number of tenets of environmental governance are being questioned by the imperative of growth. Environmental governance in India is under assault, and is thus in need of both fresh thinking,...
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