-NDTV (with inputs from IANS)   rti responses on EVMs have highlighted irregularities in everything from the number of voting machines the Election Commission bought to the price it paid for them. New Delhi: Responses to a series of Right to Information requests have thrown up multiple red flags in the Election Commission's acquisition and use of EVMs or Electronic Voting Machines. From huge inconsistencies in the records of the machines acquired...

-PTI New Delhi: Information commissioner Sridhar Acharyalu has questioned the way chief information commissioner R.K. Mathur dissolved and reconstituted a bench that was hearing complaints against some political parties. Acharyalu said the move raised "serious questions" about the "independence of individual information commissioner(s), who can be part of a bench for some time and not for some other, against his will, without his consent and without a reason or without giving a...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday fixed a ceiling of Rs 50 for public bodies, including legislative assemblies and high courts, for providing information under the Right to Information Act. A bench of Justices A K Goel and U U Lalit also ruled that the government bodies could not charge more than Rs 5 per page for giving photocopies of documents sought under the Act. It...

-The Indian Express Several commissions were either not functioning or functioning at reduced capacity as posts of Commissioners, including those of Chief Information Commissioners, were vacant during the period under review. A recent study to assess the performance of Information Commissions (ICs) by non-government organisations Satark Nagrik Sangathan (SNS) and Centre for Equity Studies (CES) has found several shortcomings in their functioning, which impact the effectiveness of the Right to Information...

-The Times of India AHMEDABAD: The answer of the State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) to an rti (Right to Information) query has revealed a shocker: Gujarat recorded 55 custodial deaths in 2017. Ahmedabad city topped the chart with 15 deaths in custody — two in police custody and 13 at the Sabarmati central jail. The rti application — filed by a human rights activist from Mehsana, Kaushik Parmar — also revealed that...