-The Telegraph   Union law minister Salman Khurshid today said there was no proposal for a re-look at the RTI law but if there were “hiccups”, they should be examined. “I know of no such proposal.... If there are any hiccups anywhere, should we not examine them, should we not talk about them, should we not debate them and see what’s to be done?” he said, when asked if the government was contemplating...

-The Economic Times   Sports Minister Ajay Maken on Monday unveiled a revised National Sports Development Bill that retains the contentious provisions on age limits and tenures of heads of sports bodies, but introduces an exclusion clause to protect certain information while bringing sports federations within the ambit of Right to Information Act.  "We strongly feel the functioning of the sports federations should be transparent. If they oppose it then there is something...

-PTI   Information given to income tax authorities by assessees does not come under any fiduciary relationship and cannot be denied to an RTI applicant on this ground, the Central Information Commission has ruled. Hearing the plea of Rakesh Kumar Gupta, who sought information on estimated tax evasion figures, the panel rejected the income tax department’s argument about such a relationship. Information commissioner Annapurna Dixit said the fiduciary relation exists when there is scope...

Just months after the 1984 gas leak at Union Carbide's plant here, the Indian government agreed to the 'terms' set by the company on compensation to be paid to victims, a Right to Information (RTI) activist has claimed. Not only that, the government treated the world's worst industrial disaster as a 'railway accident'. 'We have obtained top secret documents dated Feb 28 and March 5, 1985, that show that Union Carbide...

What began as a few whispers is now a booming drumbeat. Powerful senior ministers are asserting that the Right to Information Act (RTI), till now flaunted as one of the UPA government’s biggest gifts to the aam aadmi, is “transgressing into government functioning”. Similar misgivings are being voiced on another constitutional body that has been in the news lately—the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG). Put together, this has...