-The Business Standard The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) on Wednesday called for a level playing field for getting information for auditing purposes. Pointing out that responses from government departments were often delayed, CAG Vinod Rai said “the auditor is not given the powers which a man on the street has”. He was speaking at a panel discussion at the Business Standard Annual Awards here on Wednesday. Rai was referring...

“We are interested in prevention rather than initiating contempt proceedings”   The Supreme Court on Tuesday indicated that it would lay down guidelines for the media on court reporting with a view to striking a balance between protecting press freedom and protecting the right to life. A five-judge Constitution Bench of Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia and Justices D.K. Jain, S.S. Nijjar, Ranjana Desai and J.S. Khehar said: “We have to balance Article 21(right...

  For women, the NREGA would bring important social gains   Not being an expert on the subject and too lazy to read all the fine print, I do not know the exact allocations under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act this year. But I gather the money has been cut down, largely because the sums allocated last year were not fully used by most states. Maybe there were other considerations...

-Moneylife Activists have urged the CM to fill up the posts immediately as RTI applications to various state government departments remain unanswered RTI activists and citizens are perturbed that Maharashtra chief minister Prithviraj Chavan has been dilly-dallying with the appointments to the vacant posts in the state information commission, and have said that he needs to be proactive in the implementation of Right to Information (RTI) Act and address the problems that...

-The Times of India   The Right to Information (RTI) Act may have helped unearth some of the biggest scams and anomalies in schemes like NRHM and MGNREGA, but it is yet to become a potent tool to fight injustice for the common man. And the biggest stumbling block is the attitude of the government departments. The Act lays down that information should be provided within 30 days to the seeker.  But a...