Some of the Centre's flagship schemes aimed for rural development will be showcased at a special campaign from Wednesday. The Bharat Nirman public information campaign by Press Information Bureau (PIB) is aimed at reaching these projects to the rural areas and creating awareness about them. The three-day roadshow at Pandavapura in Mandya will have some 40 stalls wherein National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, National Rural Health Mission, Sarva Shikasha Abhiyan...

The Sonia Gandhi-headed National Advisory Council is getting ready with its version of what the proposed land acquisition law and the accompanying rehabilitation and resettlement law should be. The bills are scheduled to be introduced in the winter session of Parliament after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s assurance to Rahul Gandhi. A note drafted by advisory council member N.C. Saxena, which was handed over to panel members when they last met in August,...

Next month, the Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005, one of the most powerful laws enacted in independent India, completes half a decade in the cause of transparent and accountable administration. It enables, on demand, access to information the State and Central governments have in their possession. It empowers Indian citizens to ask for and get specific information, subject to certain norms, from a Public Authority, “thus making its functionaries...

Wajahat Habibullah, India’s chief information commissioner, has a towering task. He sees to it that the government gives its citizens information they ask for under the 2005 Right To Information Act, a position that effectively makes him an umpire astride India’s mighty bureaucracy and messy democracy. He is retiring later this month after five years in office—that’s how long the RTI law, which allows citizens to demand official documents, has been...

Burning a hole in the government's oft used argument that Right To Information Act needed to be amended to prevent its misuse and discourage frivolous and vexatious applications, government-appointed information commissioners have said the legislation was not being misused. A survey by NGO Parivartan found that only 22% of information commissioners (ICs) felt that there was misuse of the law while only 11% felt that applications filed by people were...