Faced with an aggressive opposition, the UPA government on Monday decided to drop its proposal to amend the Right to Information (rti) Act to keep the office of the Chief Justice of India (CJI) out of its ambit. “We are not contemplating any such amendment,” said Law Minister M. Veerappa Moily, contradicting his earlier statement that the government was mulling changes in the transparency law. On January 31, the minister had said:...
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The Cross Of Courage by Tusha Mittal
THEY DARED TO DO THEIR DUTY: THEY HAVE BEEN KILLED AND HARASSED FOR IT. PERHAPS THERE is a reason why Sanjiv Chaturvedi’s journey begins in the small dusty town of Kurukshetra, for his story is as epic a battle between good and evil, his journey as much a pursuit of dharma. Only, he is the sole Pandava on this battlefront, and he is the one who called the war. It was...
More »‘It’s time for eye-grabbing rural reporting’
Dismissing notions that readers are not interested in development issues or rural reportage, editors and activists Monday stressed that the media perspective on the issue needed a change as “society is no longer passive”. ‘Can rural reporting be sexy?’– this was the topic of discussion at an event organised by the Foundation for Media Professionals, an independent organisation by a group of Indian journalists, here Monday. “The time has come for rural...
More »Gandhigiri: zero-rupee payments for zero corruption by Anupama Chandrasekaran
At the second-floor office of 5th Pillar, a three-year-old Chennai-based non-governmental organization (NGO), 40-year-old Vijay Anand vociferously evangelizes to a crowd of 25 people on a Saturday evening. He urges the group—a mix of students and working professionals who are there to learn about how to get information on public officials—to fight corruption and shame corrupt government workers by offering the zero- rupee note that contains the promise to neither...
More »Angry Information Commissioner releases minutes of rti meeting on Act amendments by Vidya Subrahmaniam
Government seems disrespectful in treating October meeting as a non-event: Shailesh Gandhi At meeting, majority of 60-odd Commissioners vetoed amendments proposed by DoPT Meeting concluded on understanding that DoPT would forward minutes to the Commissioners The minutes of the stormy October 14, 2009 meeting between Central and State Information Commissioners and the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) on the controversial issue of amendments to the Right To Information Act, 2005 are...
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