Even though the Central Government agreed to link the wages paid under MG-NREGA to the Consumer Price Index for Agricultural Labourers (CPIAL), it shied away from paying statutory minimum wages in various states of India. Their logic for this: Lack of clarity on who will bear the extra financial burden—the Centre or the states? A letter from the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to UPA and NAC Chairperson Sonia Gandhi dated 31...
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RTI penalties for delay in information are rarely imposed by Ruhi Tewari
Even five years after the enactment of the pioneering Right to Information Act (RTI), penalties for delays in providing what has been sought under the law are imposed in less than 4% of the cases, an independent audit shows. The Act, which empowers citizens to demand information from the government, provides for the imposition of penalties by the Central or State Information Commission in case of delays without reasonable cause. The landmark...
More »Lenient RTI staffers caused Rs86cr loss to exchequer: Study
Information Commissioners across the country have caused a loss of Rs 86 crore during 2009-10 by not imposing penalties in cases where they ought to have done so as per provisions of the Right to Information (RTI) Act, according to a study by Public Cause Research Foundation. The total expenditure on information commissions in the country (barring Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh) was just Rs 45.4 crore. This is significantly...
More »Child rights panel to conduct social monitoring of RTE by Aarti Dhar
Mandated to monitor the implementation of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights is planning social monitoring of the historic law that guarantees elementary education to children in the age group of 6-14. This is the first time that the law separates the implementing agency from the monitoring one. The basic premise of social monitoring is public participation in...
More »Saikat Dutta, Vinita Kamte among RTI award winners by Vidya Subrahmaniam
Saikat Dutta of The Outlook magazine and Vinita Kamte, wife of killed Mumbai police officer Ashok Kamte, are among the seven winners of this year's National RTI Awards, announced on Monday by the Public Cause Research Foundation. The foundation also organised a ceremony to honour the 10 RTI activists who were killed this year. The awards were decided by a jury consisting, among others, of Infosys founder N.R. Narayana Murthy; the former...
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