Information obtained under Right to Information Act is increasingly becoming the basis of public interest petitions seeking judicial redress of grievances. The Supreme Court on Monday disapproved of this modus operandi and said from now, it would not entertain PILs solely based on RTI information. "Petitioners banking on information obtained through RTI Act must approach the concerned ministry, bring the facts to its notice and demand justice. If the ministry does...

- Women's Feature Service   These are busy days for Aruna Roy, founder member of the National Campaign for the People’s Right to Information (NCPRI) and the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS), with the Jan Lok Pal and the need to check corruption emerging as big concerns in India. The woman, who traded a promising career in the bureaucracy for an activist’s existence in 1975, is presently intensely involved in the issue. Pamela...

-PTI   140 Rajya Sabha members have declared that they do not have any pecuniary interests as directors of companies, controlling shares, regular salaries, paid consultancies and professional engagements despite some of them having declared assets worth crores in their election affidavits.   Voluntary groups, Association of Democratic Reforms and National Election Watch, which received this information under the Right to Information Act, on Thursday made public the Register of Interests of Rajya Sabha Members...

-DNA    Drilling into government’s draft of grievance redress bill, National Advisory Council (NAC) member Aruna Roy and her colleagues from National Campaign for Peoples’ Right to Information (NCPRI) on Wednesday demanded some critical changes in the proposed law to make it more useful to a common man. They also vowed to start a “public movement” in case government refused to pay heed to them. Congress led-United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government is already...

-The Times of India   Activist Aruna Roy-led National Campaign for People's Right to Information (NCPRI) has opposed the government's grievance redressal bill saying it was "seriously compromised" and would be ineffective in providing weaker sections of society with any relief in its present form. NCPRI's stinging critique of the bill is significant because Roy is an influential member of the National Advisory Council that functions under UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi. The government...