-The Telegraph New Delhi: Accused of diluting the RTI Act and weakening the architecture of accountability, the Narendra Modi government has gone into overdrive to dispute the allegation that comes at a time it is already under attack for injecting further opacity into political funding. Some erroneous media reports on the proposed RTI Rules, 2017 - circulated by the department of personnel and training (DoPT) on March 31 and open for consultations...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: A clutch of legal amendments the Narendra Modi government has introduced to allow corporate political donors to mask their contributions drags the world's largest democracy against global currents of rising transparency in electoral funding, analysts and activists have warned. From Brazil to Bangladesh, and Croatia to Cyprus, countries of diverse sizes and varied histories with democracy have over the past decade adopted laws and rules aimed at making...

-The Hindu Officials want security features changed every 3-4 years That the new Rs. 2,000 and Rs. 500 notes have the same security features as the old Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 ones has the security agencies worried. At a high-level meeting last week to discuss the presence of fake currency notes, officials at North Block were informed that the “covert security features” had not been changed since 2005. The Hindu had reported on...

-TheWire.in Pfutsero resident Neingupe Marhu uses his minivan to pick up garbage the local administration has failed to clear. New Delhi: Many may not have heard of picturesque Pfutsero in Nagaland’s Phek district, the highest and the coldest point of the state at 2,133 metres above sea level. But one Pfutsero resident is presenting a small but vital example of how individual effort can help keep civic facilities running even when the state...

-The Hindu Business Line Aadhaar does more damage than good in welfare programmes It is widely believed that Aadhaar-Based Biometric Authentication (ABBA) is necessary to improve the delivery of welfare programmes such as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA), Public Distribution System (PDS), social security pensions, and so on. This is a misconception. We have been studying these programmes for a decade, focusing mainly on the source of leakages and...