-The Hindu The World Conference on International Telecommunication showed that countries are not yet ready to arrive at a consensus on regulation and control of the Internet The World Conference on International Telecommunication (WCIT) that concluded on December 14 saw much heated debate. Some countries wanted to use the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) to gain intergovernmental control of the World Wide Web. Some saw it as an opportunity to democratise the Internet,...

-Deccan Herald The Central Information Commission (CIC) has said that details of the orders issued by the authorities for phone tapping or any interception of information passing through computers cannot be disclosed under the Right to Information (RTI) Act as it may jeopardise the security of the country. The Commission gave the ruling while rejecting an appeal filed by Talish Ray, a Delhi resident who challenged the denial of information on such...

Delhi high court to hear central bank challenge to CIC order seeking information on defaults by top industrialists The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has challenged an order by the Central Information Commission (CIC) asking the central bank to disclose names of the top 100 industrialists who have defaulted on loan repayments. In a writ petition to the Delhi high court, which is scheduled to be heard on 29 May, the central...

On February 9, 2010, the then Minister of Environment and Forests, Government of India, Jairam Ramesh, imposed an indefinite moratorium on the introduction of Bt Brinjal in India. It is necessary and desirable to quote the order verbatim. It reads as follows: It is my duty to adopt a cautious, precautionary based approach and impose a moratorium on the release of Bt Brinjals till such time independent scientific studies establish, to...

In the summer of 2009, farmer Ramesh Dhumale was excited when he got to plant about a kilo of seeds of what was pitched as the country’s first indigenously developed genetically modified (GM) cotton. At Rs 200 a kg, the seeds were far cheaper than the Rs 1,500-2,000 that the other GM cotton seeds cost. But the biggest plus was that the farmers could use and reuse the seeds from successive...