YELLING dementedly, seven lawmakers mobbed the chairman of the Indian parliament’s upper house on March 8th and tore at the document, containing the women’s reservation bill, he was reading from. Yet the bill passed the next day, with the two-thirds majority needed to change India’s constitution. With broad political support, including from the Congress party that leads India’s coalition government and the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the bill...

Rights activist Subash Chandra Agrawal has filed an application before the Central Public Information Officer, Prime Minister's Office (PMO) seeking complete information together with related documents/correspondence/file notings on the Congress president Sonia Gandhi's reported opposition for amendments to the Right to Information Act. Mr. Agrawal filed the application following reports about differences between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Ms. Sonia Gandhi on amendments to the RTI Act. There was stiff resistance...

An empowered group of ministers (eGoM) has urged the government to delink the proposed National Food Security Act (NFSA) from nutritional security and keep the issue price of wheat and rice flexible under the Act. But a top official of the agriculture ministry said some members of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government want NFSA to be an “umbrella legislation” addressing social security concerns. “The finance ministry is of the view that...

This is the second term of the UPA and till now we have always seen Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi, the UPA chairperson, working in perfect harmony but NDTV has learnt that there is one issue that they disagree, on that of RTI amendments. It's a rare occasion when the Prime Minister has stood firm and refused Congress president Sonia Gandhi's request. In a letter to UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi...

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi have reportedly exchanged correspondence over the issue of amendments to the Right to Information Act in the context of several court rulings, including one related to the Chief Justice of India. Ms. Gandhi wrote to Dr. Singh two months ago that she was of the firm opinion, like that of NGOs, that there should be no amendments to the RTI Act and...