-The Telegraph New Delhi: Prakash Javadekar's human resource development ministry has failed to back up with details his four-month-old claim that Aadhaar-linkage had helped the government identify 80,000 "ghost lecturers'' at colleges and universities. Anjali Bhardwaj and Amrita Johri of the Satark Nagrik Sangathan had moved separate Right to Information applications on the subject. Bhardwaj had sought the state-wise break-up of the "ghost lecturers", their names and those of the colleges and universities...

-The Hindu Social audits ensure a citizen-centric mode of accountability The breakdown of institutions has underlined the fact that democracy — and especially public funds — need eternal public vigilance. But in India, the elites close ranks to neutralise voices of dissent and alarm, thus preventing public vigilance. Democratic governance needs the citizen to be legally empowered to ask questions, file complaints, and be a part of the corrective process. Social audits, as...

-The Indian Express In 2013, the Supreme Court ordered the poll panel to introduce VVPATs in a phased manner, and the Commission has committed to have it in place by the time of the 2019 general elections. New Delhi: ARGUING that the involvement of private players could hurt the credibility of the electoral process, the Election Commission (EC) rejected the government’s proposal to buy voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) units from private...

-The Hindu Doctors emphasise need for protocol for newborn intensive care Mumbai: As many as 13,541 children under the age of five died in the State in a span of 11 months, a Right to Information (rti) application has revealed. A study of 11,532 deaths between April 2017 and February 2018 by the health department revealed that 65% of the children — 22 a day on an average — died in the first...

-PTI New Delhi: The Central Information Commission has directed the Bureau of Immigration, an agency exempted from rti Act disclosures, to give a person details of his travel as he needed it for defence in penal proceedings that landed him in jail. The CIC underlined that any impediment to a person's self-defence would be a breach of human rights. The case pertains to rti applicant M. Dinesh, who had sought information related to...