-Daily Maverick Laws governing citizens’ to know what is happening in their governments have become commonplace over the past decade. But it’s not just South Africans who dread the lack of transparency: a new report from the Associated Press suggests that more than half the countries with “Right to Know” laws do not actually follow them. In January AP set about testing the efficacy of freedom of information laws in 105 countries...
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Musings on the media in the dock by Sashi Kumar
The fourth pillar of democracy would cease to be free if it is made accountable to one or more of the other pillars. Much of the media, says Justice Markandey Katju, the new Chairman of the Press Council of India, is of very poor intellectual level. That, even for a former judge, would be being judgmental — except that sections of the media concerned seem hell-bent on proving him right. Setting...
More »Wary eye on world protests by Archis Mohan
-The Telegraph An international sympathiser group for Indian Maoists has declared it will protest outside offices of Indian multinationals worldwide, adding to problems the government already faces in combating the home-grown rebels. Last week, the International Committee to Support the People’s War in India announced the plan to launch its “international week of action from January 14 to 22” next year to support the CPI (Maoist)’s “people’s war” against the Indian state. The...
More »Grave violations of child rights continue, reveals social audit by Aarti Dhar
Despite 60 years of Constitutional guarantees and two decades after the signing of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, India's children still continue to face grave violation of their basic rights, an independent social audit has revealed. “We do not have a National Policy for Children defining the ‘child'. In fact, the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) has time and again recommended that a...
More »Reforming the Press Council by AG Noorani
The new Chairman of the Press Council of India, Markandey Katju, wants to make it an instrument of mediation in addition to adjudication. THE appointment of Justice Markandey Katju, a former judge of the Supreme Court, as Chairman of the Press Council of India is about the best thing that has happened to that body in a long while. It is no exaggeration to say that the PCI commands little prestige...
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