-The Hindu The RTI Act Amendment Bill must be junked The Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005, has empowered millions of Indians to question governments and hold public functionaries accountable. Of the nearly six million RTI applications filed every year in the country, a large proportion are by the poorest and the most marginalised who seek information about their basic rights and entitlements, like rations, pensions and health facilities. The use of...

-The Indian Express An RTI query filed by The Indian Express with the MoEF revealed that the Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI) was questioned as early as June of 2016 over its jurisdiction to draw up federal guidelines to regulate animal markets. New Delhi: Fifteen months before the controversial cattle trade rules were withdrawn by the Centre, questions were raised internally during the framing stage on whether the central government was...

-TheWire.in The Centre's decision to defer the Right to Information (Amendment) Bill 2018 – after protests from the public and the opposition – is temporary good news. Sub-section (5) of Section 13 of the Right to Information Act provided that the salaries and allowance and other terms and conditions of service of the chief information commissioner and information commissioners shall be same as that of the chief election commissioner and election commissioners,...

-CaravanMagazine.in Nearly a year ago, the government of India constituted a committee of experts chaired by the former Supreme Court judge BN Srikrishna to draft a data-protection law for India. Almost immediately, the committee became mired in controversy—it was first criticised for the lack of civil-society representatives among its members, and subsequently for the opacity of its proceedings, and its inefficient public consultation on the data-protection framework. In recent months, the...

-The Indian Express The procurement process also faced several allegations of corruption and favouritism. However, even months after the concerns were raised, the government is yet to take any action on them, reveals the RTI. Pune: Across party lines, political leaders had raised questions about the process to procure over 3 lakh tonnes of tur by the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Ltd, or NAFED, last year, revealed response to...