-Hindustan Times Election Commission of India (ECI) is outgunned when it comes to confronting those who circumvent existing campaign finance rules and lacks power to sanction candidates. It is a truism to note that political finance sits at the heart of corruption in modern India. While politicians publicly lament the status quo, they privately profit from the current system. Therefore, the fact that the Narendra Modi government has made reforming political finance...
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Finance ministry's own division shares EC's concerns on electoral bonds & transparency -Sanya Dhingra
-ThePrint.in The Financial Sector Reforms and Legislation Division has agreed with the EC’s view, which is that the new laws are ‘retrograde’ and need to be withdrawn. New Delhi: The Election Commission’s concerns over the transparency of electoral bonds, introduced via the Finance Act, 2017, have been supported by the Financial Sector Reforms and Legislation Division of the finance ministry. According to an RTI filed by activist Commodore Lokesh Batra (retd), an official...
More »In a Win for Activists, SC Issues Notice to Centre on Plea Challenging Foreign Political Funding -Gaurav Vivek Bhatnagar
-TheWire.in The petition before the apex court had claimed that retrospective amendments to the FCRA were meant to bail out the BJP and Congress, held guilty by the Delhi high court of accepting foreign funding. New Delhi: The Supreme Court’s notice to the Centre on July 2 seeking a response to a plea alleging that the recent amendments to the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act (FCRA), 2010 have opened the doors to...
More »The Great Transparency 'Jumla'
-Newsclick.in Electoral bonds are neither 'transparent' nor 'anonymous'. In the latest revelation, file notings of the Election Commission of India (ECI) have showed that it had decided against uploading a letter – which talked about its reservations regarding the Finance Act, 2017 and introduction of the electoral bonds – on their website. The notings have been disclosed through a response to an application under the Right to Information Act (RTI) filed by...
More »BJP recorded 593 percent jump in donations in 2016-17, Congress 105 percent, says report
-The Indian Express According to the report, the total donations received by national political parties between the financial year (FY) 2016-17 increased by Rs 487.36 cr — an increase of 478% from Rs 102.02 crore declared during the previous fiscal. The Bharatiya Janata Party received Rs 532.27 crore as donation during financial year 2016-17, a 593 per cent increase as compared to the Rs 76.85 crore it declared in the previous fiscal...
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