The Secretary-General of the Supreme Court has challenged the Delhi High Court judgment that the office of the Chief Justice of India is a “public authority” that comes within the ambit of the Right to Information Act and is bound to provide information about declaration of asset details by Supreme Court judges. The appeal, filed on Monday by advocate Devadatt Kamat, said the impugned judgment “has far-reaching consequences for the institutional...

Rights activist Subash Chandra Agrawal has filed an application before the Central Public Information Officer, Prime Minister's Office (PMO) seeking complete information together with related documents/correspondence/file notings on the Congress president Sonia Gandhi's reported opposition for amendments to the Right to Information Act. Mr. Agrawal filed the application following reports about differences between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Ms. Sonia Gandhi on amendments to the rti Act. There was stiff resistance...

This is the second term of the UPA and till now we have always seen Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi, the UPA chairperson, working in perfect harmony but NDTV has learnt that there is one issue that they disagree, on that of rti amendments. It's a rare occasion when the Prime Minister has stood firm and refused Congress president Sonia Gandhi's request. In a letter to UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi...

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi have reportedly exchanged correspondence over the issue of amendments to the Right to Information Act in the context of several court rulings, including one related to the Chief Justice of India. Ms. Gandhi wrote to Dr. Singh two months ago that she was of the firm opinion, like that of NGOs, that there should be no amendments to the rti Act and...

IMAGINE THE lowly brinjal you have always known turning into a sci-fi gizmo — with an uncharted potency for good and evil. Imagine a food turned into a pesticide — and you will have a measure of the essential uncertainty around Bt brinjal. When Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh announced his indefinite moratorium on Bt brinjal on February 9, he halted a juggernaut that could have swept India to a point...