-Moneylife.in In a historic decision, the Central Information Commission (CIC) has asked the government to reveal names of entities that have requested secrecy of Donors identities in the electoral bond scheme. Coming down heavily on the central public information officers (CPIOs) of the department of economic affairs (DEA), department of financial services (DFS), department of revenue (DR), and Election Commission of India (ECI), the central information commissioner, Suresh Chandra issued show cause...

-The Hindu The party recommended that electoral bonds should be issued without any serial number or identification marks. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had pitched for greater anonymity for Donors of electoral bonds, according to a letter sent by party general secretary Bhupendra Yadav to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in August 2017 when the scheme was being drafted. This letter was obtained by activist Lokesh Batra through a Right to Information application. The...

-The Hindu The world sits up and takes notice when surplus food feeds the hungry, instead of ending up in the bin, say volunteers of No Food Waste How often do we think of surplus food that has gone untouched at a wedding banquet, restaurant or office canteen. What happens to the leftovers? Coimbatore resident G Padmanabhan and his friends Sudhakar Mohan and N Balaji began No Food Waste (NFW) in 2014 with...

-The Telegraph Figures in May take the total amount of money invested in this opaque source of funding since January to Rs 4,794 crore Electoral bonds accounting for the maximum amount of political donations in India in May were sold in Calcutta, according to information accessed by a citizen through the Right to Information route. Of the bonds worth Rs 822 crore that were sold in select outlets of the State Bank of...

-Economic and Political Weekly The introduction of electoral bonds is a retrograde measure that radically alters the transparency regime of electoral funding. By obscuring the identities of a bond’s purchaser and recipient from everyone but the State Bank of India, they give an unfair advantage to the party in power at the centre, undermine the Election Commission’s oversight role, and deprive the voters of their right to determine if the ruling...