Next month, the Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005, one of the most powerful laws enacted in independent India, completes half a decade in the cause of transparent and accountable administration. It enables, on demand, access to information the State and Central governments have in their possession. It empowers Indian citizens to ask for and get specific information, subject to certain norms, from a Public Authority, “thus making its functionaries...

Responding to allegations that Border Security Force personnel tortured Adivasis in Kanker, Chhattisgarh, into confessing that they were Maoist cadres, the Chhattisgarh Commission for Scheduled Tribes has initiated an inquiry into the incident. The allegations were published by The Hindu on September 11 and September 13 as part of an investigation into the Arrest of 17 alleged Maoists at Kanker last week. Adivasis of Pachangi and Aloor villages in Kanker told...

The Border Security Force has ordered an internal inquiry into allegations that BSF soldiers in Chhattisgarh's Kanker district tortured villagers into confessing that they were Maoists. The allegations were levelled by Sunita Tulavi, 19, in a story published in The Hindu on September 11. A resident of Aloor village, Sunita said she was illegally detained, blindfolded and electrocuted in the BSF camp at Durgkondal, Kanker, on September 5 and released four...

“This Employment Guarantee Act is the most significant legislation of our times in many ways. For the first time, rural communities have been given not just a development programme but a regime of rights…The NREGA gives employment, gives income, gives a livelihood, and it gives a chance to live a life of self-respect and dignity.” — Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the launch of NREGS The National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme...

An RTI activist filed a non-cognisable offence with the police on Saturday night, claiming that the workers of a builder were threatening him in his locality. The activist, Santosh Daundkar, had filed a petition regarding martyr Hemant Karkare’s missing bulletproof jacket during the 26/11 terrorist attack. The FIR of the missing jacket was registered at the JJ Marg police station, following a complaint made by Daundkar in December 2009. Daundkar said he has...