Opposing the current practice of appointing retired bureaucrats as information commissioners, RTI activists on Thursday demanded that future appointments take place through open advertisement with applicants giving a detailed application form and a presentation to be screened by a high level committee. Advocating an open and transparent process for appointment of information commissioners, RTI activists said persons of eminence in public life should be selected. MKSS leader and social activist...

The father of slain RTI activist Amit Jethwa, who was shot dead by two motorcyclists near Gujarat High Court last night, has accused Junagadh MP Dinu Solanki of plotting his son’s murder and demanded a CBI inquiry. Amit, 33, had been running a campaign against illegal mining in the Gir forest that his father claims was controlled by Solanki. “Two years ago, Solanki threatened me on the phone, telling me that he...

Since she could remember, labourer Rama Nag (34) didn't know what her ration card meant, that as one of India's nearly 400 million officially poor people, she was entitled to subsidised foodgrain. Until 2006, here in the heart of impoverished tribal India, on the edge of the sprawling forests of Bastar and the Maoist zone of Dantewada, Nag and her family of four survived on rice and whatever they could...

A full bench of the Central Information Commission headed by Chief Central Information Commissioner Wajahat Habibullah has recently held that while all proceedings before the Parliamentary Committees (PC) are no doubt held secret, it cannot be stretched to mean that every single item of information, held anywhere, that may, now or in future, become part of the proceedings before the PC, or may be required to be produced before the...

The Central Information Commission decides to appeal against a judgment of the Delhi High Court that threatens to disrupt its smooth functioning. SHAILESH GANDHI, a Central Information Commissioner, recently said the Right to Information (RTI) Act faced a serious threat from the government and the judiciary. His warning came in the context of the woefully inadequate government-sanctioned resources and the number of stay orders issued by High Courts on the...