RTI applicants end up paying Rs 27 to get a photocopy of information sought through RTI from Barkatullah University. Reason: the university doesn't accept cash. Left with no option, RTI applicant has to cough up bank commission of Rs 25 for Rs-2 challan.  Barkatullah University deputy registrar B Bharti said: "We do not accept cash. We ask applicants to come with a bank challan if they want photo-copies."  When pointed out, former...

Punctuality audit ordered by the Chief Secretary of the Delhi government last year opened the Pandora’s Box on poor attendance records of government officials. Documents obtained under an RTI filed by Pratidhi show that nodal departments had large numbers of their Staff members missing, on most surprise checks. Chief secretary P K Tripathi had ordered the audit last June after writing to heads of all departments that they must conduct at...

The arrest of Syed Mohammad Ahmad Kazmi in connection with the bomb attack on an Israeli embassy car raises many questions. AN uneasy silence fills the streets of B.K. Dutt Colony near the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi. Named after the revolutionary freedom fighter Batukeshwar Dutt, who, along with Bhagat Singh, threw bombs in the Central Legislative Assembly on April 8, 1929, the nondescript colony has been...

The state government has rejected the demand of Right to Information Act activists to incorporate postal orders as one of the modes of payment of application fee and further fee under the RTI. Citing difficulty in the present prescribed modes of payment such as cash, DD, cheque and money order, the activists had petitioned the government seeking amendment to the Act to incorporate postal orders as a mode of payment. “Most public...

Sounding a note of caution, the Economic Survey has stressed that for “growth to be inclusive” India must create adequate employment opportunities—a call that underlines existing inequality, including urban-rural income disparity, and concern that it may increase as more young people enter the job market. While India’s unemployment rate has dropped from 8.2% in 2004-05 to 6.6% in 2009-10, the number of jobless is still huge in absolute terms. The...