-ThePrint.in Modi government’s proposed amendments to one of India’s most powerful laws will reduce autonomous information commissions to 'caged parrots'. India’s Right to Information Act is under attack. Surreptitiously, and without any public consultation, the Narendra Modi government introduced a bill in Parliament that aims to undermine the independence of information commissions – the final adjudicators under the RTI law. The bill was passed on 22 July by the Lok Sabha, where...
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Lok Sabha passes Bill amending RTI Act amidst strong objection from Opposition
-The Hindu Opposition accuses the government of trying to dilute the effectiveness of the law New Delhi: The Lok Sabha on Monday passed the Right to Information (Amendment) Bill, 2019 three days after it was introduced. It seeks to amend the landmark transparency law and bring in changes involving the salaries and tenures of Information Commissioners (ICs) at the States and Centre. As per the amendment ICs — who currently have five-year tenures...
More »Five-year Yoga Day bill: Rs 114 crore -Vishal Narayan
-The Telegraph Allocation in some years was higher than the national commissions for SCs, STs, safai karmacharis and denotified tribes New Delhi: The ministry of AYUSH has spent Rs 114 crore celebrating the International Day of Yoga between 2015 and 2020, an RTI reply has revealed. In its reply, the ministry informed this website that it spent Rs 16.39 crore in 2015, Rs 18.03 crore in 2016, Rs 26.42 crore in 2017,...
More »RTI Bill 2019: Undermining autonomy of information commissions and transparency in governance -Prasanna Mohanty
-IndiaToday.in The amendment proposes to reduce the status of information commissioners and fix their term of office from five years or until the age of 65 years at present. New Delhi: After an aborted attempt in 2018, the central government proposes to amend the Right to Information Act of 2005 (RTI Act) to change the term of office and service conditions the Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) and Information Commissioner (IC) at the...
More »The tremor of unwelcome amendments to the RTI Act -Aruna Roy & Nikhil Dey
-The Hindu The Right to Information (Amendment) Bill is a twin attack on accountability and the idea of federalism “Amendments” have haunted the Right to Information (RTI) community ever since the RTI Act came into effect almost 14 years ago. Rarely has a law been so stoutly defended by activists. It is not possible to pass a perfect law. But it was a popular opinion strongly held by most RTI activists that...
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