-The Indian Express They discussed verification methods through news searches, reverse image searches and fact-checking organisations as well as technical features. The question came up again and again. “If a WhatsApp message comes to the police, how can we find the original sender of the message?” asked Naveen Rana, an IT cell member from the office of the Deputy Commissioner of Police in Jaipur. “If we don’t have the data, how...

-The Hindu Outgoing Central Information Commissioner Sridhar Acharyulu flags the impact of growing vacancies in the Commission Central Information Commissioner Sridhar Acharyulu, who took on the Prime Minister’s Office and the Reserve Bank of India in a case dealing with the non-disclosure of wilful defaulters of major bank loans, warned on his last day hearing RTI appeals that by December, he and three other CICs would retire, leaving the Central Information Commission...

-The Indian Express Saying that the stand taken by the PMO will not serve any public interest, Acharyulu said, "If the RBI does not respect the SC orders and denies the citizens right to information, it will result in the perpetuation of a financial regime of secrecy." With the Reserve Bank of India’s board meeting set to be held Monday, the Central Information Commission (CIC) has once again directed the Prime Minister’s...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: At a time when the government is mulling changes in the RTI Act, information commissioner Divya Prakash Sinha has suggested that investigative, intelligence and security agencies like NIA, CBI, IB and paramilitary forces should come under the purview of the law, saying there are adequate safeguards in the Act to keep sensitive information outside the public domain. The former IPS officer, who spent most of his...

-IndiaSpend.com Dimlarpar (Bodoland Territorial Council), Assam: It was a rainy September afternoon in this remote village in Baksa, a district of the Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC) in western Assam. Outside a small tin-roofed mud house, Santi Rani Chand, a frail 72-year-old clad in a white saree, sat on a wooden bench recalling her youngest son’s suicide. Binay Chand, 32, had hanged himself from a mango tree in a neighbour’s backyard in September...