TWENTY-ONE judges of the Supreme Court, including the Chief Justice of India (CJI), posted the details of their assets on the court’s website. The details of assets of one judge, Justice H.S. Bedi, have not yet been provided. Justice B.N. Agrawal, who retired recently, also provided the details of his assets on the website on special request. (The details are available at http:// www.supremecourtofindia.nic.in/assets.htm.) The court has claimed that the...

Kheema Ram, a 40-year-old farmer from Rajasthan who exposed a number of corrupt practices through his more than 350 RTI applications is against any amendments in the Act. Ram, hailing from Rajsamund district, travelled all the way to Delhi along with fellow villagers on Saturday to protest against the proposed amendments in the RTI Act which may take out some categories of information from the Act's ambit. "The discussed amendments...

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...

A fact finding team of many civil society organizations has reported widespread occurrences of murders, tortures and cases of police atrocities in Chhattisgarh in the name of combating Naxalism. It is also being alleged that in the name of their own security, journalists are being stopped from going to so called “combat zones” where security forces have launched an Operation Greenhunt to flush out armed Maoists.  Fifteen members of the...

The Genetic Engineering Advisory Committee (GEAC), a regulatory body comprising of scientists which works with the Ministry of Environment and Forest, has finally waved the green flag for commercial cultivation of Bt brinjal in India on 14 October, 2009. The present recommendation of the GEAC has met with opposition from Greenpeace (http://www.greenpeace.org/) and a host of other civil society organizations. However, commercial cultivation of Bt brinjal may take a year...