-PTI New Delhi: Citizens will be able to file Right to Information (RTI) applications online from tomorrow in all central government ministries and departments in the national capital. Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions V Narayanasamy will launch the portal - www.rtionline.gov.in - at a function in New Delhi on Wednesday. Moving further towards greater transparency in governance, the government has started as a pilot project the facility of filing...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Political parties will be out of the purview of the RTI Act with a proposed amendment that is likely to be taken up by the Union Cabinet on Thursday. The move comes even as several prominent civil activists have petitioned PM Manmohan Singh urging him not to go ahead with the amendments without consultation. According to sources, the government plans to amend the definition of public...

-The Hindu Making the Gross Domestic Product the sole measure of national development for many years has left Indians with a natural environment that is among the most polluted in the world. Regardless of that dismal outcome, and in spite of settled law that polluters should pay, the Centre and State governments continue to balk at stronger enforcement of environmental laws. New evidence from a study by the Tata Institute of...

-The Hindu Uttarakhand reiterates that our rulers have contemptuous disregard for the advice of the best scientists and would rather listen to contractors and builders to whom they are beholden for funds In the early 1980s, while doing research on the environmental history of Uttarakhand, I sometimes visited the library of the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology in Dehradun. Most of the journals in the library dealt with geology and earth sciences,...

-PTI Even as floods play havoc in Uttarakhand, several states have opposed the provisions of a 38-year-old Model Flood Bill aimed at minimising losses to life and property in the natural calamity. The Bill, prepared by the Central Water Commission in 1975, will empower authorities to remove dwellings from flood-prone areas. States such as Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal have opposed the draft Bill, saying rehabilitation of people who will be displaced...