In a spate of recent cases in Punjab, information seekers are being turned away by public institutions on the ground that they are not covered under the RTI Act, and are not obliged to share information about their functioning. This despite the fact that almost all these institutions have received financial aid from the state government.   In nearly all such cases, the information seekers had to knock the doors of Information...

The disaster in Japan revealed many risks that were earlier unknown; it is important to assess the risks in India in a transparent manner and explain which are worth taking. The nuclear plant accident at Fukushima, Japan, in March 2011 exemplifies the prescient remark of nuclear reactor pioneer, the late Alvin Weinberg, that “a nuclear accident somewhere is a nuclear accident everywhere.” After Fukushima, many countries initiated a reconsideration of the...

-The Hindustan Times MPs, who already get R5 crore each to develop their constituencies, suddenly have more funds to dip into. The government has made available to them money under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), its flagship livelihood programme. The statistics and programme implementation ministry, which monitors the Member of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS), has decided to converge the fund with MGNREGA after representations from MPs,...

-The Deccan Herald The Central Information Commission (CIC) has warned government officials against denying information to an Right to Information (RTI) applicant on the ground that the fee has been wrongly deposited in the name of an officer or has been forwarded through a particular mode. Chief Information Commissioner Satyananda Mishra said the officials could not make these excuses in dealing with RTI applications. “We would only like to place it on record...

-The Economic Times The attempt of Central Information Commission (CIC), the final appellate authority for implementation of Right to Information (RTI) Act, to bring transparency in the functioning of ministries and autonomous bodies has come a cropper with the government refusing information to the panel itself. CIC has been facing a problem making public authorities (government departments, apex bodies, autonomous organisations and ministries) divulge details on how they are implementing RTI...