As an Indian, and one who has held high ministerial office, it is only right that I begin by portraying the reality of my own country before drawing comparisons with my South Asian neighbours. The World Food Programme tells us that half the world’s hungry live in India. Which is the more significant reality: Our being the second-fastest growing economy in the world, or that, notwithstanding that extraordinarily high growth...

Several civil society organizations and citizens who believe that a section of government and bureaucracy should not be allowed to dilute the right to information (RTI), staged a daylong protest at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi today (November 14, 2009) against the attempts to dilute the historical Act. (See the press release below for details) The civil society organizations, led by the National Council for the Peoples’ Right to Information...

West Bengal, Chhattisgarh are the best performers in providing jobs for the disabled, says govt data Bishnu Chaudhary and his wife Vijaya Devi, both stricken by polio, have been waiting for work for the past two years. But on 2 October, Chaudhary and others like him picked up the shovel to show that they too are able. “We wanted to show that we can also work, just like everyone else...

Reacting to the proposal by the government to amend the Right to Information (RTI) Act, over a 100 civil society activists and academics have written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asking him to abandon the “ill-advised move.” An amendment in this landmark legislation would be a “retrograde step” at a time when there was a popular consensus to strengthen it through rules and better implementation. The Act and its use...

Reacting to the proposal by the government to amend the Right to Information (RTI) Act, over a 100 civil society activists and academics have written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asking him to abandon the “ill-advised move.” An amendment in this landmark legislation would be a “retrograde step” at a time when there was a popular consensus to strengthen it through rules and better implementation. The Act and its use...