Fourteen national and international non-government organisations and academic centres have called for reforms in what they say are excessively-broad exemptions granted to the government on national security issues by the Right to Information (RTI) Act. To guide decision-making on information requests relating to national security, the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI), along with other groups, is in the process of formulating “guidelines” to bring about consensus on the extent of restrictions...

-The Indian Express The Bombay High Court today directed Centre, Petroleum Ministry and Finance Ministry to file an affidavit by June 20 in response to a petition that claimed the recent petrol price hike was "illegal" as it lacked Parliament's approval and violated the Constitution. A bench of Justices R Y Ganoo and N M JAMdar ordered the respondents to file an affidavit explaining their stand on increasing the price of petrol. Apart...

-MoneyLife.in Citing lack of uniformity in the prices of petrol, the petitioner said that in Thane, the price per litre is Rs81.70, while it is as low as Rs58.06 in Port Blair, Rs81.75 per litre in Bengaluru and Rs73.18 in Delhi The Bombay High Court on Monday issued notices to Centre, Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas and Finance Secretary, besides three oil marketing companies on a public interest litigation (PIL), which...

Eminent journalist Dileep Padgaonkar who headed the group of three Central interlocutors for JAMmu and Kashmir said on Thursday that the thrust of their report was to empower the people of JAMmu and Kashmir so that they were able to exercise their civil and political rights in full measure. The 176-page report of the group of Central interlocutors was uploaded on the website of Union Home Ministry on Thursday, seven months...

-The Telegraph Several states today proposed user charges on rural households for the piped water provided to them but Bengal avoided taking a stand. The Centre supported the idea, proposed by states such as Gujarat, Odisha, JAMmu and Kashmir, Bihar and Haryana at a conference of ministers for water supply and sanitation. Most urban households in the country now pay water charges but water has always been a free commodity in the villages....