-The Indian Express Recently, the prime minister raised concerns about RTI applications encroaching on the right to privacy. At this juncture, it may be worth remembering the case of “Auto Shankar” and his diary. About 20 years ago, an auto driver called Gauri Shankar, who had murdered more than six teenage girls, was convicted and sentenced to death. Before the appeals process was exhausted, he started writing a diary, which was...

-The Times of India The Election Commission (EC) has asked the Union home ministry to probe the alleged violation of the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) by both the Congress and the BJP by receiving donations of about Rs 5 crore each from Vedanta Group subsidiaries — Sterlite Industries and Sesa Goa. Nirvachan Sadan sources told TOI that the Representation of People Act (RPA) debarred political parties from receiving contribution for a...

-Outlook The Election Commission has come across instances of suspected violations of the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act by Congress and the BJP in their acceptance of donations from subsidiaries of multi-national firm Vedanta group. An investigation by the EC, carried out with the help of the I-T department, has found that both the parties had received about Rs 5 crore each from two subsidiaries of the Vedanta group -- Sterlite Industries and...

-DNA "Frivolous and vexatious” — these were the words that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh used while addressing this year’s edition of the annual Right To Information (RTI) convention. His choice of words raises several disturbing questions. The PM conveniently ignored the fact that there is no legal definition of what constitutes “frivolous and vexatious” and there is unlikely to be one in the future. Will one person’s understanding of “frivolous” be...

-The Times of India Unwilling to risk their futures to political vagaries, corporate houses tend to hedge their bets and contribute to political parties across the spectrum. Data analyzed by the Association for Democratic Reforms and the National Election Watch has found that the trust which made the maximum contributions to political parties is the General Electoral Trust of the Aditya Birla Group, with Rs 36.46 crore to the Congress between 2003-04...