-The Indian Express RTI Act needs to be protected against attempts to dilute it. RTI activists must be made less vulnerable In April, the government of India proposed amendments to the RTI Act, one of the most empowering pieces of legislation inherited from the UPA era. The most controversial amendment pertained to Rule 12. It would allow the withdrawal of an application in case of the applicant’s death, making the job of...

-Frontline.in The death of nearly 60 children in Gorakhpur because of the unavailability of oxygen can be directly attributed to the larger issue of drastic reduction in budgetary allocations for and the gross neglect of the public health system. THE death of almost 60 children, including infants, in the government-run Baba Raghav Das Medical College Hospital in Gorakhpur within a span of 48 hours raises several issues relating to the state...

-Firstpost.com The Narendra Modi government seems to have inherited Amitabh Bachchan's famous coin from Sholay. For, whichever way it falls, the government claims it has won. Its latest spin on demonetisation is yet another example of the government's 'heads we win, tails we win' arrogance. But, economy is not cinema. So, don't believe for a moment that the government was expecting almost all of the demonetised currency to return to the Reserve...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Bihar is among the states with the poorest progress towards open-defecation-free (ODF) targets with some districts requiring 500 toilets every day to meet 2019 goals, according to a report from the non-government Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) released today. The report said Bihar, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, and Jharkhand, accounting for 60 per cent of open defecation, would need to accelerate efforts for India to reach its ODF...

-Newsclick.in After months of dilly-dallying the Reserve Bank of India has finally come out with the figure that nearly 99 percent of the currency notes demonetised in November 2016, came back to the banking system. After months of dilly-dallying the Reserve Bank of India has finally come out with the figure that nearly 99 percent of the currency notes demonetised in November 2016, came back to the banking system. The total value...