-Tehelka Justice Sujata Manohar on how the Biotechnology Bill is fundamentally flawed IN THE last few years, regulatory systems across the board have been undergoing an overhaul to fit the needs of a new era. Likewise, new laws are being chalked out to meet new needs, and several are receiving flak owing to the loopholes and regressive grounds on which these have been drafted. The relatively more recent one to regulate modern...

-Live Mint To maintain his constant stream of RTI petitions, Agrawal says he gets ideas from day-to-day observations, news reports, government insiders, whistle-blowers and journalists. In the summer of 1985, a cloth merchant in Chandni Chowk, the crowded market in the old quarters of Delhi, received a call in response to a letter he had written to the papers asking why his favourite weekly television serial, Rajani, could not be aired daily...

-The Times of India MUMBAI: RTI activists have decided to file a PIL against the state government on the process of selecting the state chief information commissioner. The move follows the appointment of Ratnakar Gaikwad as the state chief information commissioner (SCIC) and activists feel that the state government needs to rethink its decision of having him at the helm of affairs. Gaikwad, who met RTI activists on Monday at his office,...

-The Times of India   Haryana government has formulated a policy to protect whistleblowers/RTI activists in the state, according to which, a committee comprising district magistrate, superintendent of police and district attorneys would take a decision on providing security to the activist after reviewing the threat perception. According to chief secretary, Haryana, P K Chaudhary, "It has been decided that district level committees, under the chairmanship of district magistrates, with SPs and district...

-The Hindu The murder of S.P. Mahantesh, who succumbed to injuries five days after he was brutally attacked, is a gloomy reminder of the risks of being upright in an environment that stinks of corruption. It also reinforces the need to push through with the long delayed legislation to protect whistleblowers, who often reveal information in the public interest at great personal risk. Mahantesh's death is especially poignant for The Hindu...