-The Hindu RTI activist points out irregularities in procurement of biscuits Pune: More allegations of corruption are being made against the Maharashtra Women and Child Development Department (WCD) headed by BJP leader Pankaja Munde, with RTI activists pointing to irregularities in the manufacture and distribution of Ayurvedic biscuits intended a vital source for the nourishment or tribal and underprivileged children living in the State’s backward districts. While the ‘chikki’ scam, whose irregularities have...

A long-pending demand of civil society activists and NGOs, who are campaigning for probity, accountability, and transparency in public life, is going to be fulfilled soon. A welcome move has been made by the Government to enumerate and publish data on crimes committed against media persons, Right to Information activists, and whistleblowers in the forthcoming edition of Crime in India, which is published annually by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB)...

-Hindustan Times When right to information activist Guru Prasad Shukla was beaten to death by fellow villagers last month, he became the 39th person to lay down his life for exercising the transparency law in its first decade. Another 275 people have reportedly been assaulted or harassed for invoking the law to raise uncomfortable questions before those in power. The 50-year-old Shukla had sought information about development work in his village and...

-PTI Medical expenses incurred on judges and their family members cannot be disclosed or made public under the Right to Information Act, the Supreme Court held on Thursday. A bench of Chief Justice HL Dattu and justices Arun Mishra and Amitava Roy refused to interfere with a Delhi High Court verdict dismissing a plea seeking details of medical reimbursements of Supreme Court judges, saying it had personal information and providing it would...

-CaravanMagazine.in On 13 February 2014, Ajay Dubey, a Right to Information (RTI) activist based in Bhopal, filed an RTI regarding the appointment of government advocates in Madhya Pradesh (MP). Well-versed with the condition of RTI applications in the state, Dubey did not expect to get a reply from the Public Information Officer (PIO) of the Law and Legislative Affairs department of MP. “The government’s attitude is lacklustre when it comes to...