-Outlook The Centre has decided to conduct a study on RTI Act to assess its implementation across the country and find ways to address bottlenecks faced by various stakeholders. The study will analyse public perception about the extent of reduction in corruption as a result of the functioning of the RTI Act and to calculate cost to the government in providing information under the transparency law among others. Besides, it will determine the...

-Kafila.org The village of Majure, in Chitradurga district, Karnataka, is once again in the news. It made the national headlines in 1998 when dalits in the village lodged a police complaint against members of the dominant Vokkaliga and Lingayat castes for an attack on their hamlet. As a consequence, several people were put behind bars. This time round, however, no formal complaint was lodged. Not that things have improved (rather, one could...

-The Hindu WHO, UK Health Protection Agency and the International Commission on Non Ionizing Radiation Protection do not support the BioInitiative Report conclusions The recently released BioInitiative Report 2012 (BIR-2012) on standards for electromagnetic radiation is a perfect clone of a similar report published in 2007. According to many responsible agencies it is biased and unscientific. BIR-2012 claimed that the evidence for risks to health from wireless technologies and electromagnetic fields (EMFs)...

-DNA Prominent RTI activists on Tuesday said violence on users, court stay on prominent decisions of the information commission, rulings that limit the scope of RTI and threats from the government through legislations were major challenges facing the Act. Aruna Roy, member of National Advisory Council (NAC), Shailesh Gandhi, former central information commissioner, Nikhil Dey, member of National Council for People’s Right to Information (NCPRI), Shankar Singh, member of Mazdoor Kisan Shakti...

-The Telegraph When survival is at stake, tweet. Khap panchayats, the extra-judicial village courts that face possible ban following allegations of encouraging “honour killings”, have decided to give themselves an image makeover. And the “best way” of doing that, they feel, is logging on to social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. “It is essential for us to spread information about what we do and who we are. The Internet is the best way...