-The Hindu Business Line A CAG audit shows that the Centre and State governments have been criminally remiss over disaster management The unprecedented and continuing rains that have broken a 100-year record and have wreaked havoc in Chennai for over a week, highlight both elaborate rescue and relief efforts as well as gaps in the existing policy on disaster planning. It is true that swift deployment of the armed forces to evacuate...

-Livemint.com What’s essential for the unique identification number to continue is a strong law. But what should it look like? A key thrust of the 2012 writ petition filed in the Aadhaar case (Puttaswamy versus Union of India) was that the executive action in implementing Aadhaar was unconstitutional in the absence of a law. Later developments in the case, including the government’s argument that there is no fundamental right to privacy, and...

As Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh fight the fury of flood caused by annual northeast monsoon, a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) on the natural disaster in Uttarakhand, which took place in June 2013, has been made available in the public domain recently. The CAG report discloses how various development activities in the state flouted guidelines issued by the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), Expert Committee on glaciers...

-The Hindu Business Line As the Right to Information Act completes 10 years, we examine how RTI has changed people’s lives, become a byword for democracy, and helped alter the relationship between citizen and state Mintu Devi’s relationship with the ration shop changed the day she filed an RTI. In the jhuggis of New Seemapuri, situated on the northeastern edge of Delhi, she is a legend. The 37-year-old mother of four is...

-The Hindu The Supreme Court on Monday sought the Centre’s response on a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) petition, alleging haphazard implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), and delay in payment of wages and compensation to labourers. The petition, filed by RTI activist Aruna Roy, social activist Nikhil Dey and ex-civil servant Lalit Mathur, said the government had a pending liability of Rs. 3,200 crore in wages to...