On Saturday last, as the government was highlighting with much fanfare the achievements under the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009 in the past two years, the RTE Division of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) — entrusted with the responsibility of monitoring the implementation of the Act — was virtually winding up. It all happened as the term of Kiran Bhatty, the...
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Urgency plea for land acquisition can't be done casually: Supreme Court
-PTI Urgency clause can be invoked by the government only in exceptional cases after "applying its mind", the Supreme Court has ruled while quashing acquisition of land by the Delhi administration for a housing project in Rohini. The apex court said the burden of justifying acquisition by invoking the urgency clause under Section 17(1)(4) of Land Acquisition Act solely rests on the government as otherwise it amounts to depriving a person of...
More »N-safety bill route to amend RTI irks CIC
-The Times of India A letter from the office of India's Central Information Commission to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recently raises serious concerns over two proposals to amend the Right to Information Act through the Nuclear Safety Regulatory Authority (NSRA) Bill 2011, which was introduced in the Lok Sabha last September. The first amendment seeks to exempt sensitive information on nuclear radiation safety issues and commercially sensitive information on technology holders from...
More »RTE Act: Two years on, there's still a long way to go by Liffy Thomas
Sunday marked the completion of two years since the landmark Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act came into force. Although Tamil Nadu initially took time to come out with its draft rules before it notified them in November 2011, the School Education Department, over the last couple of months, has taken up a number of initiatives to raise awareness of the RTE Act. One such attempt was setting up...
More »Chidambaram flags three amendments proposed to Armed Forces Act-Vinay Kumar
A Union Home Ministry's proposal for amendments to the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act is pending with the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS), P. Chidambaram said on Saturday, a day after the United Nations Special Rapporteur asked India to repeal the law, arguing that it had no place in a democracy. Answering questions at his monthly press conference, he said his Ministry had sought three amendments. “These pertain to three sections…” He...
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