-The Hindustan Times   At a time when it's reeling under allegations of scams and scandals, official documents show that the government gave the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) more immunity from the Right to Information (RTI) Act than what the agency had originally sought. The issue of how much immunity the CBI should get was bounced between several government departments, committees and officials that questioned the agency's demand of partial immunity, all...

AS THE UPA government struggled to hide its embarrassment over the finance ministry note on the 2G spectrum allocation, the RTI Act — through which the note was made public — has become the whipping boy. Senior Cabinet members such as Corporate Affairs Minister Veerappa Moily and Law Minister Salman Khurshid have hit out at the ‘misuse’ of the transparency law. Moily called for a national debate as he claimed RTI...

-PTI Maruti Suzuki India shut its main plant at Gurgaon for two days starting today due to component supply constraints from SPIL, where workers are on a stir in support of the striking colleagues at the country's largest car-maker's Manesar plant. "Maruti Suzuki has decided to suspend production at the Gurgaon plant on October 14 and October 15. This is in view of the non-availability of components for cars," the company...

Chief Information Commissioner Satyananda Mishra demanded on Friday that the Central Information Commission be upgraded to the status of a Constitutional authority along the lines of the Election Commission of India and the Comptroller and Auditor General of India. RTI circles interpreted Mr. Mishra's intervention, coming after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's call for a critical look at the Right to Information Act, as an effort to safeguard the Act and the...

With tribals accounting for about 14 per cent of the total population in the state, the Congress party is organising a one-day conclave at Kevadia Colony in the tribal-dominated Narmada district on October 15 to discuss the issues of interest to them. Aimed at wooing the tribal heartland for 2012 assembly elections, the party has decided to focus mainly on the issue of allotment of forest land. The issue of forest...