Mihir Shah, member of the Planning Commission and chairman of the committee to redraft rules and guidelines of NREGA, tells Sreelatha Menon that the Act may also cover farm labourers. The consortium of NGOs that recommended changes in the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) was founded by you, but your suggestions have been criticised. You seem to consider it a lack of demand rather than a supply problem. First, you should...

India’s transparency watchdog the Central Information Commission has decided to take upon itself the task of safeguard interests of the Right To Information (RTI) applicants who face harassment for seeking information. In 2010, 28 RTI activists were allegedly attacked after filing their applications and this year two activists Manglaram of Rajasthan and Amarnath. India's transparency watchdog the Central Information Commission has decided to take upon itself the task of safeguard interests of...

All pending information sought by a Right to Information (RTI) activist, who has subsequently been murdered, will henceforth be placed in the public domain. This decision was taken by the Central Information Commission (CIC), which has been under pressure to do its bit to stem the mounting casualties of RTI activists and applicants. The nature of information sought, the CIC believes, will reveal the motive for the murder. In a resolution...

After colleague Veerappa Moily, Law Minister Salman Khurshid has expressed concern over the Right to Information (RTI) Act affecting government functioning. Advocating a re-look at RTI, Khurshid said its misuse was affecting “institutional efficacy and efficiency”, with even the bureaucracy becoming reluctant to record its opinion. A “balance” has to be maintained between transparency and accountability and institutional efficiency, he said. “There is a confidential communication between a minister and the Prime...

Even as the Centre is set to junk most of the recommendations of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on the Whistleblowers Bill, the government has proposed that the penalty for frivolous or malafide complaints in the proposed Bill would be a jail term up to one year and/or a fine up to Rs 30,000. Also, the Centre says that it would be for the trial court to decide on the quantum...