When the controversial Finance Ministry note to the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) on P. Chidambaram's role in 2G spectrum allocation was traced to a Right to Information application, there was surprise — and some concern — both within the government and in RTI circles. The government's discomfiture was understandable: The RTI Act, which was its proud creation, recoiled on it much like the boon that Lord Shiva granted Basmasura. In the...
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Coal mining policy: The dismantling of the 'go, no-go' policy may do little to improve supplies of coal by Avinash Celestine
In March this year, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) raided the houses and businesses of a few top industrialists in Dhanbad, Jharkhand, home to one of the subsidiaries of India's biggest coal miner, Coal India (CIL). Dhanbad is more widely known in popular imagination as home of the infamous 'coal mafia', which spread a reign of terror across the coal mining districts of the then undivided Bihar in the...
More »Aruna Roy flays new BPL norms
-The Times of India National Advisory Council (NAC) member Aruna Roy lashed out at the Planning Commission's new criteria for poverty line submitted to the Supreme Court on Tuesday. "This affidavit reflects the government's deep lack of empathy for the poor and a perspective completely divorced from reality," she said. Roy was reacting to the Plan panel's submission to the Supreme Court, saying if a person's spending exceeds Rs 32 a day in...
More »Row over poverty line by Sanjay K Jha and Basant Kumar Mohanty
The Planning Commission’s new definition of poverty widely criticised as being unrealistic has caused disquiet in the UPA, with Congress leaders privately dubbing the benchmarks insensitive and ally NCP publicly slamming them as an “insult to the poor”. Congress leaders believe the figures, under which anyone spending more than Rs 32 a day in urban areas and Rs 26 in villages will not be considered poor and hence will not be...
More »Central notification exempting CBI from purview of RTI Act upheld by KT Sangameswaran
The Madras High Court on Friday upheld a notification of the Centre issued in June this year exempting the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) from the purview of the Right to Information (RTI) Act. In its order dismissing a public interest litigation petition challenging the exemption, the First Bench consisting of the Chief Justice M.Y. Eqbal and Justice T.S. Sivagnanam said that indisputably, CBI was investigating several cases of larger public...
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