-Forbes India Why the recent Supreme Court ruling threatens to kill citizens’ Right to Information The Supreme Court has placed the Central Information Commission (CIC), the apex body to deal with appeals regarding RTI, as well as the Information Commissions across the states in a fine pickle. On September 13, a division bench of the Supreme Court, chaired by Justice AK Patnaik and Justice Swatanter Kumar, passed an order which would fundamentally change...

-The Indian Express Patna: In a first, Bihar’s State Information Commission has asked the Home department to produce before it a “defiant” Block Development Officer, who has failed to respond to as many as nine summons sent over two years. The SIC has been hearing the case of a BDO, who, despite being the designated public information officer, has not replied to a query by an applicant on why and how many...

-The Hindu Right to Information (RTI) activist Subhash Chandra Agrawal says there is something suspicious about why the Cabinet Secretariat is not divulging the full biodata of former Central Vigilance Commissioner (CVC) Polayil Joseph Thomas, and other details about him that were placed before the high power committee headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Mr. Agrawal, who had sought these details and filed an appeal against the order of the Chief Public...

-The Hindustan Times The bureaucracy is determined to make you pay for your Right to Information (RTI), literally. Documents released under the transparency law reveal that the government has been planning to make people pay to file appeals since 2009. So far, RTI applicants only have to pay a fee of Rs. 10 for filing applications. If the information request is denied, they are entitled to appeal against the decision, initially to the...

-The Hindustan Times In response to the widespread protests and the nation-wide hartal last Thursday, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh addressed the nation on Friday and tried to explain why these decisions had become inevitable. The thrust of his argument was, “We need a revival in investor confidence, domestically and globally.” For this, the current high fiscal deficit must be contained and, hence, the hike in the prices of diesel and cap on...