-The Times of India   With the Bhilwara pattern social audit of schemes under the MGNREGA shelved in the state, the alternative method is also coming under political pressure. A recent application under the Right to Information (RTI) Act has revealed letters from a minister and an MLA urging the social audit directorate not to conduct audit of MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) schemes in villages falling in their constituencies....

-The Telegraph   Rural development minister Jairam Ramesh today opposed sharing of certain “privileged” and “secret” matters under the right to information (RTI) law, echoing cabinet colleagues Salman Khurshid and M. Veerappa Moily. “Ministers write to the Prime Minister on a variety of issues. There has to be a concept of secrecy in government,” Ramesh said. According to Ramesh, communications leading to a cabinet decision or a policy decision of the government should be...

In a landmark order, the state chief information commissioner told an applicant to pay for information that should have been given to him free of cost. Provisions of the Right to Information (RTI) Act mention that an applicant cannot be charged for information if it is not provided within 30 days if there is no valid explanation given for the delay. An applicant also cannot be charged if he is not...

-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...

The Delhi High Court has handed both the political circuit and the media a ticking parcel with its judgment in the Ashok Chavan case. It shouldn't be long before we learn what's ticking. (What's not ticking is the media. Subdued quiet seems the norm.) The former Maharashtra Chief Minister had challenged the power of the Election Commission of India (ECI) to go into the truth or falsity of his 2009...