-Hindustan Times A reply under the Right to Information Act, recently, disclosed that “Lokpal is provisionally operating from the Ashoka Hotel. In the absence of a permanent office in the national capital, the country’s apex anti-corruption body, Lokpal, set up to look into complaints against public servants, pays a monthly rent of Rs 50 lakh to government-owned Hotel Ashoka for the office space it occupies in the five-star luxury hotel. A reply...

-The Indian Express A voice in the dark: Agnes Kharshiing remains undeterred as she awaits a response to her latest RTI application with the Urban Affairs department about land acquired for an upcoming medical college in Shillong. New Delhi: I didn’t know of Madalyn Murray O’ Hair until a feature film on her life, The Most Hated Woman in America dropped on Netflix. She was irreverent; she had a mind of...

-The Indian Express At current rates of depletion, Punjab’s entire subsurface water resource could be exhausted in a little over two decades. Jalandhar: As the discussion around Punjab’s massive groundwater crisis becomes more urgent, there is an increasingly stronger accent on diversification of crops, and a move away from water-guzzling paddy. At a meeting over the weekend, Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), Ludhiana, decided to strengthen maize — the most important alternative to...

-The Indian Express Justice Gogoi chose a moment, a few days before he remitted office, in a public function in Delhi, to vigorously defend the NRC in Assam. It is unusual for an incumbent Chief Justice to publicly declare his views on highly politically fraught matters. The country today stands at the brink of catastrophic human suffering and injustice, if the government implements, nation-wide, the National Register of Citizens (NRC), as...

-Press release by National Alliance of Peoples' Movements  dated 28 November, 2019 In yet another of its egregious legislative misadventures, the BJP Government with support from some other parties, passed the regressive 'Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights)' Bill, in the Rajya Sabha yesterday, despite wide-spread opposition by members of the transgender, intersex and gender non-confirming communities, seeking referral of the Bill to a Select Committee. We have all been witness to...