-The Hindu The RTI Act Amendment Bill must be junked The Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005, has empowered millions of Indians to question governments and hold public functionaries accountable. Of the nearly six million RTI applications filed every year in the country, a large proportion are by the poorest and the most marginalised who seek information about their basic rights and entitlements, like rations, pensions and health facilities. The use of...

-PTI The government has asked the heads of all departments and Autonomous Bodies to visit the onlne RTI portal on daily basis, preferably as the first task of the day, to avoid any delay in replying to applications and appeals filed by citizens. The Delhi government has warned officials of strict action for “inappropriate handling” of online RTI applications, after it received several complaints about departments not responding to pleas seeking information....

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Participating as a volunteer in the Centre's financial literacy campaign for a cashless economy will yield academic credits to students of higher educational institutions, including the IITs. The Union HRD ministry has launched a scheme called the Vittiya Saksharta Abhiyan (Visaka) under which heads of institutions have been advised to give students credits for taking forward the Prime Minister's agenda. "Directors of all institutions should ensure that the necessary...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The government has decided to focus on over 500 Autonomous Bodies -from the University Grants Commission and Jawahar Lal Nehru University to Delhi Development Authority, Prasar Bharati and CSIR -and has asked Niti Aayog to review the performance of these entities that have mushroomed over the years with little oversight. Sources told TOI that Niti Aayog has been entrusted the task as the government looks to...

-The Hindu The Centre should step forward and bring both Punjab and Haryana, ruled by the BJP and an ally, to the negotiating table to resolve the crisis over the Sutlej-Yamuna Link canal Contemporary India illustrates the tragic paradox of farmers’ politics: they get divided just when they need to unite the most. The last few years have witnessed a deepening of the agrarian crisis in India. This is the moment when...