Information Commissioner Shailesh Gandhi sold off his business in 2003 to do something relevant. The Indian Institute of Technology-Mumbai alumnus soon became a prolific user of the Right To Information Act and filed more than 800 RTI applications. He was appointed the Information Commissioner at the Central Information Commission, New Delhi, in 2008. In this freewheeling interview with rediff.com's Priyanka, Gandhi says that appellants must understand that law describes 'information' as something...

-Live Mint   In almost all instances, what is feared is the disclosure of “damaging” information—information that shows official lapses. Looked from another vantage, if officials have not done any wrong, they should have no fear at the release of such facts Six years after it was passed, the Right to Information (RTI) Act evokes contrasting feelings. Among Politicians and in officialdom, suspicion and hostility are dominant moods. Among citizens, hope and despair—in...

In the corridors of power in Delhi and beyond, a three-letter acronym has left some of the mightiest Politicians and officials befuddled, embarrassed and powerless. The RTI, or the Right to Information Act, which compels the government to share information about its functioning with its citizens on demand, has acquired the reputation of a four-letter word among India's rulers. Its lethal nature was on full display this week - it...

In March this year, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) raided the houses and businesses of a few top industrialists in Dhanbad, Jharkhand, home to one of the subsidiaries of India's biggest coal miner, Coal India (CIL). Dhanbad is more widely known in popular imagination as home of the infamous 'coal mafia', which spread a reign of terror across the coal mining districts of the then undivided Bihar in the...

-The Indian Express Unfinished car shells rusting in a deserted factory in India's West Bengal state lie testimony to flaws in a century-old land-acquisition law the government now wants to replace. * Jobs, housing, cash to landowners made mandatory * Costs, project delays to increase - Indian corporates react * Bill to push up costs by 350 pct for big plots - analysts, cos * Bill likely to be passed in December Tata Motors was forced...