A steady rise in the awareness levels about the Right To Information Act (RTI) among the general public has forced babus to adopt the use of multi-coloured stick-notes (small glued sheets or post-its) on all files and petitions processed at the state secretariat. This way, there will neither be any record of favouritism shown to any issue nor evidence of any irregularity in the speedy clearance of a certain file...

A Right to Information (RTI) activist who was in the forefront in exposing corruption in PDS, foodgrain and fuel distribution in the Marathwada region has been found dead in Nanded. The circumstances behind how 43-year-old Ramdas Ghadegavkar, a local Shiv Sena leader, died is shrouded in mystery. The death of Ramdas, who used the RTI Act, adds another name in the victim list of whistleblowers in the country. The Shivajinagar police...

New Delhi : Stating that only 33 per cent of the urban population knew about the Right To Information Act, the government on Wednesday informed the Lok Sabha that steps were afoot to increase awareness about the law. “Government instituted a study in 2009 which found that awareness level about the RTI Act is low. Only 33 per cent of people in urban areas were aware of the Act till 2008-09,”Minister...

HYDERABAD: The Right to Information (RTI) Act finally seems to be serving its purpose: empowering citizens with information which they can use to demand justice. Reeling under an attack on their houses, a group of 13 displaced tribal families from remote Bhadrachalam used the RTI Act to find out the status of the land on which they had constructed their huts a year ago. Armed with this information, they have now...

The method of selection of Information Commissioners cries out for reform. FOR the Right to Information (RTI) Act to be successful, it is not enough if it has provisions that encourage information-sharing and punish those Information Officers who deny requests for information on specious grounds. Activists have found that while deciding appeal cases the degree of commitment of Information Commissioners to the Act's objectives matters more than the supportive provisions of...