-Hindustan Times A 6% fall between 2015-16 and 2016-17 was reported in RTI applications filed with the 1,950 public authorities of the Central government, which receives maximum information applications followed by Maharashtra and Karnataka. The right to information law meant to empower Indians and bring transparency in governance appeared to be losing steam with the number of queries going down mainly because of stone-walling of information by officials and slow disposal of...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Almost a year after it came out with draft RTI Rules 2017, the government seems to have put them in cold storage. There has been criticism the new rules failed to address recurrent issues like non-compliance of CIC orders and also gave more powers to the chief information commissioner leaving scope for misuse. The revised rules, which had faced resistance, from a part of the...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The central information commission on Tuesday said there should be no delay in payment of pension to senior citizens on the pretext of linking accounts with a beneficiary's Aadhaar number. "In the name of linking to Aadhaar or other such conditions, the public authority cannot delay the payment of pension to senior citizens and retired employees in view of their post-retirement requirements," information commissioner Sridhar Acharyulu said. He said...

-The Indian Express Several commissions were either not functioning or functioning at reduced capacity as posts of Commissioners, including those of Chief Information Commissioners, were vacant during the period under review. A recent study to assess the performance of Information Commissions (ICs) by non-government organisations Satark Nagrik Sangathan (SNS) and Centre for Equity Studies (CES) has found several shortcomings in their functioning, which impact the effectiveness of the Right to Information...

-Newsclick.in An assessment conducted by the Satark Nagrik Sangathan and the Centre for Equity Studies has flagged the problems of huge pendency of appeals and complaints as well as long waiting periods for disposal. The information commissions (ICs) set up under the Right to Information (RTI) Act 2005 are critical to citizens exercising the hard-won Right to Information, which can hold the government and public offices accountable. But a new report on...