-Live Mint All file notings can be made public now except those explicitly exempted  The Union cabinet on Thursday decided to withdraw controversial draft amendments to the Right to Information (RTI) Act that sought to restrict disclosure of government file notings. The move allayed the concerns of rights activists. The draft amendments would have restricted disclosure of file notings only to social and developmental issues. The government had to drop the move following...

-The Indian Express Cutting across party lines, the BJP, NCP, CPI(M), CPI and BSP have told the Central Information Commission (CIC) that they should not be covered under the Right to Information (RTI) Act. The Congress, however, has not made its views known as it skipped the hearing before the full bench on Thursday. The representatives of the political parties argued that since they already provide details to the Election Commission and...

-The Economic Times A full bench of the Central Information Commission, the final appellate authority on Right to Information (RTI) Act, will on Thursday decide whetherpolitical outfits should come under the purview of the Act. Political parties are yet to show any inclination towards adopting the transparency legislation. Chief Information Commissioner Satyananda Mishra and Information Commissioners ML Sharma and Annapurna Dixit would give their verdict on separate appeals by RTI activist...

-The Tribune India is governed by a written Constitution and any policy decision, programme by the Central or state government must be within the constitutional parameter of the Constitution. The State under our Constitution is mandated to protect the human rights. Any government policy, which seeks to shift this responsibility from the state to the private sector, would be, without anything more, unconstitutional and hence impermissible. The United Nations, since its inception, has...

-Outlook Former Chief Election Commissioner S Y Quraishi has proposed mandatory annual audit of funds and donations received by political parties. "We want all political funding should be transparent and checked. There should be annual compulsory audits by an independent auditor to be picked up from a panel suggested by the Election Commission," Quraishi told PTI. He said the report of such audit should be put in the public domain. "Everybody will be able...