Pune has become the first municipal corporation in India to have a Right to Information (RTI) library. Magsaysay award winner Arvind Kejriwal inaugurated the library that is named after Prakash Kardaley, a journalist from the city, who had a major role in the drafting of the Right to Information Act. Calling Kardaley a guiding force in the RTI movement, Mr. Kejriwal said that it was only apt that the Pune Municipal...

Chief information commissioner (CIC) Wajahat Habibullah on Sunday said rural people in Rajasthan are more aware about the Right to Information (RTI) Act. RTI is the only tool which compels politicians as well as bureaucrats to maintain transparency in their functioning. Habibullah was speaking at a seminar on How RTI is Useful To Eradicate Corruption from Politics organised by Citizen Council and PUCL. "The whole world is looking towards our...

Improper storage and negligence continues to damage foodgrain stock of the Food Corporation of India (FCI). In fact, it had about 14,000 tonnes of totally damaged rice, wheat and paddy, which could not be issued for distribution at the start of the year. According to information obtained by RTI Activist Dev Ashish Bhattacharya, the nodal government procurement agency had as many as 13,824 tonnes of “non-issuable” foodgrain stock as on January...

A law empowering Indians to seek information from government to promote accountability and transparency has brought change to urban India, but has largely left out the country's rural poor, social activists say. The Right to Information (RTI) Act - similar to the Freedom of Information Act in the United States - was enacted almost five years ago and is aimed at providing a practical way for all citizens to access...

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...