-PTI   The UIDAI chief Nandan Nilekani today asserted that the authority set up for issuing national identity cards was working under the powers delegated by the Prime Minister. "My powers have been delegated by the Prime minister," Unique Identification Development Authority of India (UIDAI) Chairman Nilekani said when asked whether the authority was on a collision course with the Planning Commission. "We are an attached office of the Planning Commission and by series...

Information Commissioner Shailesh Gandhi sold off his business in 2003 to do something relevant. The Indian Institute of Technology-Mumbai alumnus soon became a prolific user of the Right To Information Act and filed more than 800 RTI applications. He was appointed the Information Commissioner at the Central Information Commission, New Delhi, in 2008. In this freewheeling interview with rediff.com's Priyanka, Gandhi says that appellants must understand that law describes 'information' as something...

-PTI   Law Minister Salman Khurshid on Monday said the RTI Act was being "misused" and officials and even judges feel the transparency law was transgressing into government functioning. "Undoubtedly, it has been misused. But you have to weigh misuse with usefulness of the RTI Act. We would like our life to be miserable than the life of a citizen," Khurshid said. Asked about recent remarks of Corporate Affairs Minister M Veerappa...

-PTI   Government has spent nearly Rs 42 crore on foreign visits by Union Ministers during the last one year. The information provided in an RTI reply shows that while Cabinet Ministers spent Rs 37.16 crore on their foreign visits, their junior colleagues, Ministers of State, spent about Rs 4.76 crore on these visits bringing the total travel expenditure to Rs 41.82 crore for the year 2010-11. The Cabinet Secretariat has given these...

The World Bank has suggested sale of excess public land in Indian cities to fund infrastructure projects. Collaborating with the India Development Foundation and the Public Private Infrastructure Advisory Facility , the World Bank has formed a steering committee headed by Vijay Kelkar, chairman of the 13th finance commission, to formulate a proposal on monetizing excess public land. Earlier this month, the bank's India director Roberto Zagha Patricia Annez met stakeholders,...