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,...

Wajahat Habibullah, India’s chief information commissioner, has a towering task. He sees to it that the government gives its citizens information they ask for under the 2005 Right to Information Act, a position that effectively makes him an umpire astride India’s mighty bureaucracy and messy democracy. He is retiring later this month after five years in office—that’s how long the RTI law, which allows citizens to demand official documents, has been...

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...

In an apparent reference to former Chief Vigilance Commissioner (CVC) Pratyush Sinha’s recent comment regarding his “thankless” job, Union Law and Justice Minister M Veerappa Moily on Monday said senior officers weren’t expected to make such statements. Sinha had observed at an interview last week that the worst part of his “thankless” job was observing how corruption had increased as people became more materialistic. “I don’t want to name anyone, he...

An RTI Activist filed a non-cognisable offence with the police on Saturday night, claiming that the workers of a builder were threatening him in his locality. The activist, Santosh Daundkar, had filed a petition regarding martyr Hemant Karkare’s missing bulletproof jacket during the 26/11 terrorist attack. The FIR of the missing jacket was registered at the JJ Marg police station, following a complaint made by Daundkar in December 2009. Daundkar said he has...