A landmark ruling by the Central Information Commission raises hopes that government functioning will become more transparent. ON August 30, a three-member Bench of the Central Information Commission (CIC), New Delhi, gave a ruling that has the potential to bring under public scrutiny crucial aspects of the functioning of the Central and State governments that have remained hidden from the public glare all these years. The Bench, comprising Chief Information...
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Activists criticise AN Tiwari’s appointment as information commission chief by Ashutosh Shukla
AN Tiwari may have taken the oath of office to succeed Wajahat Habibullah as the next chief information commissioner. However, this has agitated information activists. On their blogs, they have slammed the government for executing the appointment while the nation was distracted by the Ayodhya verdict. Blogs and group mails dedicated to the Right to Information (RTI) like Humjanenge and rti4empowerment have seen comments from activists across India. “This is certainly not...
More »Information as a right by N Bhaskara Rao
Five years after the enactment of the Right to Information Act, awareness of the law, its provisions and potential appears to be very low. Marking the completion of five years, in September 2010, of the enactment of the Right to Information Act, the Central Information Commission (CIC) held the fifth annual convention on “RTI: Challenges and Opportunities,” in New Delhi on September 13 and 14. It was largely a gathering of...
More »Ringing the winds of change in the new Bihar by Suneha Dutta
Bihar's programme of filing RTI applications through a call center is a novel one. The question is whether the model is effiicient enough to be replicated in other states like Karnataka. If you are in Bihar, you can get electronic goods repaired, phone numbers, buy things through call centres — and also file an RTI application. Zafar Hassan has filed two applications in the past two years through call centres,...
More »RTI officials say no misuse of act, only frivolous requests by Himanshi Dhawan
Burning a hole in the government's oft used argument that Right to Information Act needed to be amended to prevent its misuse and discourage frivolous and vexatious applications, government-appointed information commissioners have said the legislation was not being misused. A survey by NGO Parivartan found that only 22% of information commissioners (ICs) felt that there was misuse of the law while only 11% felt that applications filed by people were...
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