Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel is the richest cabinet minister in UPA-II whereas Railway Minister Mamta Banerjee is among the poorest. The Prime Ministers' Office has provided details of assets and liabilities of 77 ministers in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's council, submitted for the first time under the Right to Information Act. The ministers are required to submit details of their assets and liabilities to the Prime Minister's Office every year. Getting...

Pratyush Sinha retired as India’s central vigilance commissioner on Monday. During his tenure Sinha, a 1969 Bihar cadre IAS officer, conducted several high-profile investigations such as the ones into the allocation of 2G mobile phone spectrum and preparations for the Commonwealth Games (CWG), among others. In an interview conducted in mid-August, Sinha spoke about issues ranging from the whistle-blower’s Act to the collapse of governance. Edited excerpts: What are the...

Long before they gained currency as the real-life counterparts of the Na'vis portrayed by Hollywood blockbuster "Avatar", the author of the Vedanta verdict — Justice S H Kapadia — had made clear about how he saw the Dongaria Kondhs, who are officially classified as "primitive tribal group". Kapadia, now chief justice of India, described this tribe from Orissa as a people "living on grass". His unflattering, almost dismissive description came...

The Centre has written to all states to set up desks in each police station in the country to deal exclusively with crime against women and children. Asking the states to sensitise police towards crime against children through well-structured training programmes, the women and child development ministry has said there should be no delay in registering FIRs in cases of crime against children. “All-out efforts should be made to apprehend all the...

In the five years of the Right to Information Act, activists who use it have faced reprisal across the country. OCTOBER 2010 marks the fifth anniversary of the Right to Information (RTI) Act. The Act and its implementation have been described in both administrative circles and civil society as “revolutionary” , “a blow for transparency”, “a check on corrupt practices” and “a people's intervention tool with tremendous impact”. Social activists and...