In her pre-Independence Day address, the President of India advocated the need for enhanced transparency and accountability in government, stressing the need for the adoption of rational and practical approaches in addressing these challenges. Her choice of qualifiers is significant, since the need for reform is especially being felt in government contracts, with recent government initiatives such as enacting a formal public procurement law for India, and for laying down...
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Experts see more big cats than reserve cameras by Sanjeev Kumar Verma
Experts have questioned the latest tiger count at Bihar’s Valmiki reserve, saying the park could have more than the eight big cats the census says it has. Authorities at the Valmiki Tiger Reserve (VTR), in West Champaran district, claim that the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) had goofed up in not taking into account the entire occupancy area of the park and instead relied on the data collected over just 444sq...
More »RTI activists at gunpoint, govt must step in by Pramod Kumar
-The Deccan Chronicle Shashidhar Mishra could have spent his entire life as a street vendor in his native village at Begusarai, Bihar. But he decided to get the information kept in the government files unlocked by filing more than 1,000 RTI applications. The reward he got was death. He was killed in his native village by unidentified gunmen in February 2010. Mishra is among at least 16 RTI activists who have...
More »Land Bill hastened, talks shortened
-The Indian Express Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh Friday hinted at introducing the Land Acquisition and Rehabilitation and Resettlement (LARR) Bill, 2011, in the current session of Parliament by cutting short the period of public consultation on it. “The revised draft Bill was sent for inter-ministerial consultation on August 12. I hope to get Cabinet approval by the first week of September,” he said, hoping to introduce the Bill in the current...
More »Online RTI courts on the anvil by Ajit Nayak
SAMBALPUR: In an attempt towards speedy disposal of RTI Act cases, the state RTI commission has decided to hold online courts. The commission hopes such courts will not only help it to listen to grievances from people located at distant places but will also help the commission to save time by doing away with the practice of moving from place to place to hold camp courts. "It is hoped the implementation...
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