-PTI NEW DELHI: The State Bank of India has sold electoral bonds worth over Rs 3,622 crore in March and April this year, an RTI response has said. In a response provided to Pune-based Vihar Durve, the SBI said electoral bonds of Rs 1,365.69 crore were sold in March, which shot up by 65.21 per cent in April to Rs 2,256.37 crore. In April, most electoral bonds were sold in Mumbai at Rs...
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Voters needn't know source of political funding: govt.
-The Hindu Voters need not know the funding source of parties, A-G tells court New Delhi: Voters do not need to know from where political parties get their funds, the government argued in the Supreme Court on Thursday. The court cannot “kill” the electoral bonds scheme for the sake of transparency, Attorney General K.K. Venugopal said. He argued that the bond was an experiment to eradicate black money and the court should not...
More »The electoral bonds scheme is a threat to democracy - Gautam Bhatia
-Hindustan Times From a constitutional point of view, the scheme fails the tests of rationality and non-arbitrariness Earlier this month, the Supreme Court indicated that it would hear the long-pending constitutional challenge to the electoral bonds scheme. The electoral bonds scheme, which was introduced by the government in early 2018, provides new channels for private funding of political parties, and has been subjected to severe criticism, including by a former Chief Election...
More »Govt. defends electoral bonds scheme in SC -Krishnadas Rajagopal
-The Hindu ‘Ensures transparency, checks misuse’ Electoral bonds have been introduced to promote transparency in funding and donation received by political parties, the government told the Supreme Court on Thursday. “They [bonds] can be encashed by an eligible political party only through their accounts with authorised banks. The bonds do not have the name of the donor or the receiving political party and only carry unique hidden alphanumeric serial numbers as an in-built...
More »Aruna Roy, well-known social and political activist, interviewed by Jipson John and Jitheesh PM (Frontline.in)
-Frontline.in Interview with Aruna Roy. ARUNA ROY is a well-known social and political activist. A former Indian Administrative Service officer, she resigned from the IAS in 1975 and has since worked with the most oppressed in society. Aruna Roy’s observation on government service is indicative of her future concerns: “Everyone calls it an elite service; I always felt the discourse should be a bit better than what it was. I was shocked...
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