-The Hindu   The paid news case is no longer just about Ashok Chavan. It concerns every individual and institution opposed to the sway of money power in elections Politicians everywhere are known to indulge in doublespeak and our politicians are no exception. But some recent pronouncements of our Law Minister only show that our politicians may have very few serious rivals in this sport. Not long ago, the Minister was all praise...

-The Times of India The Supreme Court on Tuesday stayed its seven-month-old controversial order directing governments to appoint retired SC and HC judges as heads of Central Information Commission and State Information Commissions. In an interim order passed on a petition by the Union government seeking review of the apex court's September 13, 2012 judgment, a bench of Justices A K Patnaik and Arjan K Sikri also stayed the earlier directive to...

-The Times of India HYDERABAD: In a move that may provide relief to thousands of undertrials in state jails, the state information commission is planning to direct the government to make public the list of those who are languishing in prisons without trial for a long time, officials said. "We will order the prisons department to immediately make the information on undertrials public under the Right to Information act," saidJannat Hussain, chief...

-The Times of India CHENNAI: One of the three convicts on death row for the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, AG Perarivalan, will on Monday be on a videoconference with Central Information Commissioner Satyananda Mishra on a complaint against Rashtrapati Bhavan and the ministry of home affairs on a petition seeking to know why his mercy plea was rejected in August 2011. A notification on the videoconference was fixed three days ago...

-DNA The 97th constitutional amendment made RTI activists happy because they believed that it brought co-operative housing societies under the purview of the RTI Act. In February, the state passed its own ordinance implementing the amendment. State Chief Information Commissioner Ratnakar Gaikwad does not stand with the activists' consensus. He spoke with dna's Ashutosh Shukla about cooperative societies, pending second appeals and voluntary disclosure. Your opinion on housing societies coming under RTI? I don't think that...