Bihar's programme of filing RTI applications through a call center is a novel one. The question is whether the model is effiicient enough to be replicated in other states like Karnataka. If you are in Bihar, you can get electronic goods repaired, phone numbers, buy things through call centres — and also file an RTI application. Zafar Hassan has filed two applications in the past two years through call centres,...

Janardhana Reddy insists he is not a king. No, no, no, he protested, as a servant trotted across the courtyard to deliver a cup of cooled water. Men with machine guns stood outside. An architect waited to discuss the new mansion, while another man hovered nearby, sitting in the grass. “He’s the state minister of health,” Mr. Reddy said of the man in the grass, who stood up, made a little...

Rural television viewers who want more than the half-an-hour of Krishi Darshan daily, there is good news. It may soon be beamed 24x7. The rural development ministry has decided to launch a 24-hour channel for India’s large rural population to make them “adequately aware” of the government’s umpteen schemes. Krishi Darshan would be the model — the proposed channel’s programmes would deal with agriculture, land, water and sanitation. But “it will have...

Journalists have come under increasing attacks in Orissa over the past year, caught between aggressive industrialists, political corruption and competitive media houses. “There have been 12 physical attacks on reporters, stringers or camera persons this year, and six cases of threat and intimidation, up from three attacks in 2009,” says a special report brought out by the Free Speech Hub, an initiative of the Media Foundation. With the State being on...

Petitioners contemplating PILs against ongoing projects on environment grounds might want to do a rethink. The government's new litigation policy calls for petitioners to be slapped with costs for stoppage of projects that are in public interest. This approach is a prominent part of the National Litigation Policy (NLP) announced recently by law minister Veerappa Moily and is a response to PILs that lack merit. Though a majority of PILs...