The government cannot seek exemption of its orders constituting a committee for a specific purpose under the Right to Information Act. The Central Information Commission (CIC) has said that decisions directing the setting of an expert committee cannot be treated on the same footing as that of “Cabinet papers”, which are exempt from disclosure under the Act. Allowing an appeal in a case where the applicant sought to know whether the...

The chief of the army's central command surveyed Abhujmaadh forests from the air and then landed in Raipur to allay anxieties over a potential conflict escalation in the Maoist controlled forest in Chhattisgarh's Narayanpur district where the army plans to train its troops. "We will exercise maximum restraint. This is our country, they are our people," said Lieutenant General Vijay Ahluwalia, emphasising that the army would be deployed solely for the...

I was awakened early one morning recently by someone who said he was enormously enjoying my on-going debate on economic growth in India. I was very pleased that I had given someone some joy, but I also wondered what on earth he could be talking about, since I have not been involved in any such debate. As it happens, I am getting a steady stream of telephone calls and electronic...

Inflation is beginning to hurt seriously, corruption is at an all-time high and the government is not doing enough to tackle either problem. That is the way India's big cities feel on the two big issues dominating headlines in recent months, according to an 8-city survey done exclusively for TOI. Asked what impact rising prices have had on their household budgets, only 3% said it has had a small impact. About...

Almost a year after the state government promised to impose stringent laws to arrest the exploitation of farmers at the hands of private moneylenders, the rate of borrowing has gone up to 36-40% in the state. The laws remain on paper as the government has failed to put in place any regulatory body that could take action against the private moneylenders in the state. Highly-placed sources in the government said, “The...