Do psychiatry patients have the right to access records of their treatment? While the Central Information Commission (CIC) directed a mental health hospital to provide this information to a patient, the hospital has moved court citing confidentiality. The Delhi High Court has given the Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences (IHBAS) a stay order against disclosing the information till the next hearing in September. The case pertains to a 32-year-old married...

Drug smugglers and third-world dictators laundering ill-gotten wealth through secretive banking systems in tax havens is an anachronistic image from crime novels. Leveraging US' remarkable success in compelling tax havens to block terrorist financing, the G20/OECD have successfully persuaded tax havens to improve tax transparency and participate in an international regime of information exchange.  All tax havens have committed to OECD standards for tax transparency and are executing Tax Information Exchange...

The new IT rules violate the right to freedom of speech and expression New media has come to play a major role in the process of opinion making, as was evident in the recent Arab uprisings and the campaign against corruption in India. It is a means of propaganda and a tool for mobilising the masses. The strength of new media lies in the opportunity for creative participation that it offers...

Imagine you are a citizen racing across newspapers rapid fire. As you flip the pages you run across events like the Vedanta mining case, the Koodankulam nuclear controversy, the debate on poverty and reports about climate change. Each of these can be a life-threatening event and none of them have a life support system of knowledge which allows them to be debated in the open. The basic information comes from...

The National Advisory Council (NAC) wants the government to assess if its cash incentive scheme for the welfare of girls meets its objective of reducing gender selection, as there’s no official study yet to suggest that it does. As part of its recommendations for a national policy to stem India’s declining sex ratio, NAC also sought the formation of a communication and advocacy strategy and stronger laws to prevent the misuse...