-The Indian Express Lokpal amendments underline the resistance of political class to scrutiny The Lokpal Act passed more than two and a half years ago has not been operationalised till date. The reason? The law states that the panel to select the Lokpal must include the recognised leader of opposition. Since the BJP government has not recognised anyone as the LoP, an amendment was required to ensure that the leader of the...
More »SEARCH RESULT
A decade of RTI: All you need to know about the game changing law
-Hindustan Times Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday is addressing a convention on the 10th-anniversary celebrations of the Right to Information (RTI) Act which was brought in ‘to promote transparency and accountability in the working of every public authority’. As the act completes a decade of existence, here is how (and why) it changed the way the government and public servants function: 1. What is RTI? A law that empowers every citizen to seek...
More »30% IPS Officers Ignore Property Disclosure -Gangadhar S Patil
-IndiaSpend.com New Delhi: More than 30% officers of Indian Police Service (IPS) and about 15% officers of Indian Administrative Service (IAS) have not disclosed details of their immovable property for the year 2014, according to government data. The All-India Service (Conduct) rules, 1968, require officers to disclose these details when they join service and submit an annual property statement—listing properties and shares. As many as 1,302 IPS officers have missed the deadline by...
More »Amendment Bill proposes to water down whistle-blower law
-The Hindu Business Line Govt wants to keep issues of national importance outside purview of the law New Delhi: Is the Centre diluting the whistleblower protection law by excluding certain issues of national importance from its purview? It appears so, going by the latest Amendment Bill, which was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Monday. A likely effect of the new Bill is that whistleblowers seeking to raise issues of national importance, including those...
More »Doesn't India Already Have an IPR Policy? -Sunil Mani
-Economic and Political Weekly The National Democratic Alliance government has constituted the IPR Think Tank which, among other things, is to draft the National Intellectual Property Rights Policy. India may not have a policy per se but it has a strong legislation on IPRs, a functioning patents office and mechanisms to grant patents as well as protect consumer interests. The Think Tank has other issues it needs to address, but is...
More »