Rajan Ghate, Goa's one-man-army against the illegal purchase of land by foreigners, is one among five Indian citizens to be awarded the National RTI Awards 2010 by the National RTI Secretariat, Uttar Pradesh. The awards ceremony will be held in January 2011. During his days as the state president of the Nationalist Youth Congress from September 2005 to October 2010, Ghate single-handedly agitated against the illegal purchase of land in...

In the end, Gangula Tadangi succumbed to tuberculosis. The Kondh Adivasi’s life could have been saved if he had made it to the hospital on time. But he was in judicial custody at Koraput district jail in southern Odisha for allegedly “waging war against the Indian State”. During his last moments, Tadangi, 25, is said to have whispered something in Kondh. But nobody could make out anything because no one...

If it was the inability to resettle 450 families that sealed the fate for Korean steelmaker Posco in Orissa, the failure to give jobs to another 500 families in and around the Vedanta project in Niyamgiri put paid to the aluminium major’s plans, said National Advisory Committee member NC Saxena, who wrote the report that resulted in cancellation of Vedanta’s project. On being asked about the contradictions between development and growth,...

It has been the most contentious of UPA's flagship schemes for the aam admi. The government has never been sure if it wants the Forest Rights Act to really work, and Congress can't make up its mind on whether it will gain anything from the act meant to return forestlands taken away illegally from tribals and others by the government. It has been a handy tool to make some pro-tribal...

Good things should not be curbed. Certainly not a legislation to which so much is owed by so many. The Right to Information Act is a fundamental democratic achievement for India, one that took a long time in coming for a proclaimed democratic state. And when it did, the system became more transparent, if not cleaner. Ordinary citizens, urban and rural, with little or no ability to negotiate their way...