Resistance to disclosure is a phenomenon that is confined not only to the executive. here have been instances where the judiciary has also shown that much of intransigence to the Right to Information Act. It is no wonder that the Chief Justice of India S H Kapadia once said at a function that sunlight is a great Disinfectant, but too much of it can burn one as well. Interestingly, in June...

Ardent admirers of the Supreme Court will credit it with starting three revolutions in the past three decades. In the 1980s the public interest litigation (PIL) movement opened the doors of the court to every citizen, especially those who could not reach it due to poverty, illiteracy or backwardness. Around the same time, the court sowed the seeds of citizens’ right to know in a few judgments, asserting that sunlight is...

-The Associated Press   She waited 1 1/2 hours at the hospital, only to see a nurse who yelled that she was "lying about being in labor." Three hours later, her baby was born dead. Another woman gave birth on the street, steps away from a clinic that twice turned her away, saying her time had not come. Several other women interviewed by Human Rights Watch said their legs were pinched and faces slapped...

The strict guidelines that every civil surgeon was supposed to follow to ensure zero diarrhoea deaths in the state issued on April 30 were ignored and a no-compliance report was sent to the state office of the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM). The instruction list that ended with a pledge let us all take this resolution that there will be no diarrhoea deaths in our state in the days to...

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Friday arrested former Jharkhand health secretary Siaram Prasad Sinha in a multi-crore rupee scam in the department. “We are going to prosecute him in the case”,CBI SP S K Choudhary told The Indian Express. The CBI Friday also raided the residence of former health minister Bhanu Pratap Shahi at Bhavnatpur in Palamu in connection with the case. Shahi was not home. Sinha and two other senior...