Bombay HC had said he enjoyed no such immunity   The Supreme Court on Thursday stayed the orders of the Goa Bench of Bombay High Court which held that the Governor of Goa was a public authority and would come within the ambit of the Right to Information (rti) Act. The High Court had held that the Governor enjoyed no immunity from the rti Act and that the Public Information Officer at the...

A Lakhisarai-bases rti activist, who had filed dozens of rti applications on hoarding, black marketing, appointment of panchayat teachers and aanganwadi workers and status of development schemes in villages, was shot dead on Thursday morning at his native village, barely five km from the district town. The rti activist, Ramvilas Singh (56), also Amhara panchayat samiti member, is suspected to have been killed because of political rivalry with a person whose...

-The Times of India   Some Union ministers have expressed concern that the Right to Information (rti) Act is affecting government's functioning, according to the government.  Minister of personnel, public grievances and pensions V Narayanasamy replied in the affirmative on a query in the Rajya Sabha regarding concerns raised by ministers on therti Act affecting the government's functioning.  When asked about bureaucrats expressing apprehension about putting their views on controversial issues because of the...

-The Hindu   On the orders of the Special Lokayukta Court here, the Lokayukta police on Thursday filed FIR against three former Chief Ministers as well as 11 senior civil servants of Karnataka. External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna, and MPs N. Dharam Singh and H.D. Kumaraswamy will be investigated by the Lokayukta police in a case in which they have been accused of complicity in the alleged multi-crore mining scam. The investigating agency will...

A Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance is set to recommend that the government withdraw the National Identification Authority of India Bill 2010, reports India Today, citing unnamed sources. The recommendation is to withdraw the bill and introduce another one, because members of the standing committee found the project directionless, and that the bill and the project are not acceptable in their present form, the report states. It doesn’t quite mention...