-The Telegraph The court was hearing a joint PIL filed by Anjali Bharadwaj, Col Lokesh Batra and Amrita Johri complaining about the openings resulting in a massive backlog of cases The Supreme Court on Wednesday granted four weeks to the Centre and states to come out with details of vacancies of information commissioners amid complaints that governments across the country are seeking to dilute the transparency law by the keeping the posts...

-The Hindu More than 16,000 machines from private manufacturers yet to be installed: Health Ministry data More than a year after the PM CARES fund announced it would buy and distribute 50,000 ventilators for ₹2,000 crore, only ₹1,532 crore has been released, according to a Health Ministry response to a Right to Information request filed by Commodore Lokesh Batra (Retd). The remaining money is awaiting clearance from the fund, said an official. A...

-Moneylife.in Amid reports of malfunctioning ventilators procured with support from the Prime Minister's Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations Fund (PM CARES Fund), there is a new revelation about different prices paid to the government-owned company and other private players.    As per information obtained by Delhi-based right to information (RTI) activist, commodore (Cmde) Lokesh Batra (retd), the Union ministry of health and family welfare (MoHFW) spent Rs2,332.22 crore for buying 58,850...

-The Hindu Current price negotiated through bulk orders may not be replicable: Finance Secy The first lot of vaccines were procured by the Centre using PM CARES funds at a higher rate than the subsequent rounds paid for by budgetary allocations, The Hindu has learnt from the response to a Right to Information request by a transparency activist. The Health Ministry response said that the initial 5.6 crore doses of Covishield were bought...

-The Hindu Office cites ‘diversion of resources’ clause; former CIC Wajahat Habibullah terms it ‘misuse of Act’. The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) has denied a Right to Information request related to the PM-CARES Fund on the grounds that providing it would “disproportionately divert the resources of the office.” However, a High Court judgment and multiple orders of the Central Information Commission (CIC) have previously held that, under the RTI Act, this rationale...