In a letter to an RTI activist, the Department of Personnel and Training (Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions) has admitted to considering about a dozen amendments to the Right to Information Act, with the assurance that any amendment “will be made only after consultation with the stakeholders.” The letter to Subhash Chandra Agrawal is upfront about at least two of the amendments: exempting the office of the Chief Justice...
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The Gene Gun At Your Head by Shoma Chaudhury
IMAGINE THE lowly brinjal you have always known turning into a sci-fi gizmo — with an uncharted potency for good and evil. Imagine a food turned into a pesticide — and you will have a measure of the essential uncertainty around Bt brinjal. When Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh announced his indefinite moratorium on Bt brinjal on February 9, he halted a juggernaut that could have swept India to a point...
More »Transparency in bar councils by Samanwaya Rautray
Like India’s topmost judge, lawyers’ regulatory bodies have been made accountable to the public under the Right to Information Act. The Central Information Commission (CIC) has ruled that bar councils are public authorities under the RTI Act and cannot refuse to share information lying with them with the public. The ruling is likely to kick off a rush of RTI applications to the bar councils, professional bodies that are expected to maintain...
More »Villagers, activists up in arms over proposed RTI changes
Kheema Ram, a 40-year-old farmer from Rajasthan who exposed a number of corrupt practices through his more than 350 RTI applications is against any amendments in the Act. Ram, hailing from Rajsamund district, travelled all the way to Delhi along with fellow villagers on Saturday to protest against the proposed amendments in the RTI Act which may take out some categories of information from the Act's ambit. "The discussed amendments...
More »Academics, activists oppose amendment to RTI Act
Reacting to the proposal by the government to amend the Right to Information (RTI) Act, over a 100 civil society activists and academics have written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asking him to abandon the “ill-advised move.” An amendment in this landmark legislation would be a “retrograde step” at a time when there was a popular consensus to strengthen it through rules and better implementation. The Act and its use...
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