-The Times of India NEW DELHI: A man seeking land registration details in a village through Right to Information Act was asked to pay a fee in excess of Rs 21 lakh. When a below poverty line person put up an RTI query on distribution of food grains under PDS, he was told to deposit Rs 2,000 to get the information. Citing these and many such examples, advocate Sanjeeb Panigrahi has filed...

-Outlook   Gujarat government today clarified that it had not issued any new guidelines for identification of Below Poverty Line families, saying it could not take such a step unilaterally without involving the Centre. Reacting to a media report which claimed that the Gujarat government had come up with new criteria for identification of BPL families, the state's Food and Civil Supplies Secretary RP Gupta said that they had merely reiterated the guidelines...

-The Telegraph Bhubaneswar: Last month, TV grabs of two migrant labourers with their right palms missing sent shock waves across the state. Hailing from Kalahandi district, part of Odisha's poor KBK belt, Nilambar Dhangada and Bialu Nial had to lose their palms for refusing to do the bidding of the labour contractor who had hired them for work in Raipur but was forcing them to go to Andhra Pradesh and work at...

-Frontline The tussle within some Central government Ministries over proposed cuts in the budget for rural development schemes has affected a promise made to senior citizens. THEIR wizened faces said it all. Though there was disappointment, there was also a glimmer of hope that their trek to the national capital would not go in vain. For almost a month, senior citizens, most of them poor, had been pouring into New Delhi from...

-The Hoot The drafting of the application should be such that it points towards the specific documents required in relation to the information sought. An extract from the section for information seekers in the 2013 guide. FOR INFORMATION SEEKERS Method of Seeking Information A citizen, who desires to obtain any information under the Act, should make an application to the Public Information Officer of the concerned public authority in writing in...