The biggest challenge is to promote 'institutional transparency', newly-appointed chief information commissioner (CIC) A N Tiwari said on Thursday. Tiwari, who will be sworn in as head of the Central Information Commission by President Pratibha Patil on Friday, said that the Right to Information (RTI) should not be the only recourse for transparency and that public authorities should proactively disclose information. "Section 19 and 25 of the RTI, which empower the Commission...

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...

The Union Cabinet approves a new Bill to protect whistle-blowers, but there is concern whether its provisions will amount to much. ON March 22, a special court in Patna pronounced three persons guilty in the murder of Satyendra K. Dubey, a civil engineer from Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur. He was shot dead on November 29, 2003, for blowing the whistle on corrupt practices in the Golden Quadrilateral Project in Bihar....

Even as the department of civil supplies and consumer affairs conducts consumer rights’ awareness events in rural areas periodically, lack of councils and laboratory facilities are dampening consumer activism in Goa, say consumer rights’ experts. They point out that both district consumer courts, set up under the justice redressal system of the Consumer Protection Act (CPA), 1986 are in urban areas. This makes it difficult for rural consumers to approach...

Alarmed with the rising number of pending RTI complaints, the State Information Commission is learnt to have apprised the state government of the increasing work pressure on Information Commissioners. The commission — where as many as 32,811 cases were pending at the end of March — has also suggested ways to lessen the burden of complaints. The government, in response, has shot a missive to various departments asking them to...