India’s transparency law – Right To Information – will not change but the government wants to restrict its applicability through other laws. Two new draft laws --- National Sports Development Bill and National Nuclear Safety Authority --- have specific provisions prohibiting disclosing information in addition to the exemption clauses already in the RTI law. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday wanted a “critical look” at these exemption clauses asking to examine changes...
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Manmohan's RTI speech revives old chestnuts by Vidya Subrahmaniam
Chief Information Commissioner Satyananda Mishra demanded on Friday that the Central Information Commission be upgraded to the status of a Constitutional authority along the lines of the Election Commission of India and the Comptroller and Auditor General of India. RTI circles interpreted Mr. Mishra's intervention, coming after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's call for a critical look at the Right to Information Act, as an effort to safeguard the Act and the...
More »Secrets Act faces changes by Nishit Dholabhai
The Centre is preparing to water down the Official Secrets Act, 1923, a pre-colonial tool against spying that successive governments are accused of taking cover under when faced with questions of corruption. Amendments are being worked out after several ministries, including that of defence, responded to a note circulated by the home ministry in August, sources said. The Prime Minister today said the RTI Act is being “more extensively and effectively” used...
More »Lokpal to have constitutional status, ‘more power than EC’
-The Economic Times The government on Tuesday said it would confer constitutional status on the proposed Lokpal , embracing the idea mooted by Rahul Gandhi. "We are working on a very strong Lokpal bill. A Lokpal bill that will come with a constitutional amendment . That amendment will give the Lokpal the status of a constitutional authority," law minister Salman Khurshid told PTI on Tuesday. Khurshid, who gave Rahul the credit for the...
More »Any amendments must strengthen, not dilute, the RTI Act
-The Economic Times Union Law Minister Salman Khurshid's remarks on the need to revisit the Right to Information (RTI) Act, on the purported reason that its 'misuse' was hampering 'institutional efficiency', displays the discomfort amongst the political and bureaucratic classes over an Act that has unprecedentedly empowered ordinary citizens. Talk of amending the Act on those and similar grounds is nothing but those classes seeking to disempower citizens, and return to...
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