-Down to Earth The National Democratic Alliance government's move is an assault on the independence of information commissioners, writes former Central Information Commissioner M Sridhar Acharyulu Alas! I thought the Narendra Modi government is strong enough after its re-election. But now it is scared of the Right to Information (RTI) and the Chief Information Commission (CIC), as if they are monsters who can harm the power of the powerful rulers. The Information Commissioner...
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There's a 'Bizarre', Incomplete Logic to Amended RTI Act -Wajahat Habibullah
-Newsclick.in The amendments contradict the federal nature of the Act, and end up violating the PM’s principle of cooperative federalism. Information is the currency that every citizen requires to participate in the life and governance of society —AP Shah, former Chief Justice, Delhi and Madras High Courts, 2010. It is not just Shah but many justices of the High Courts and the Supreme Court, who have repeatedly stressed that the right to information is...
More »Lok Sabha passes Bill amending RTI Act amidst strong objection from Opposition
-The Hindu Opposition accuses the government of trying to dilute the effectiveness of the law New Delhi: The Lok Sabha on Monday passed the Right to Information (Amendment) Bill, 2019 three days after it was introduced. It seeks to amend the landmark transparency law and bring in changes involving the salaries and tenures of Information Commissioners (ICs) at the States and Centre. As per the amendment ICs — who currently have five-year tenures...
More »88 manual scavenging deaths in 3 years -Damini Nath
-The Hindu T.N., Gujarat lead list; toll could be higher as many States do not report incidents The number of deaths of sanitation workers while cleaning septic tanks and sewers has risen, despite a ban on manual scavenging, with 620 cases reported since 1993, of which 88 occurred in the past three years, according to the Social Justice and Empowerment Ministry. To a question by MPs Asaduddin Owaisi and Syed Imtiaz Jaleel...
More »NDA trounces agrarian crisis to win rural areas -Jitendra
-Down to Earth Despite the rural hinterland being in the throes of agrarian distress, the incumbent coalition has won handsomely in these very areas The incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has beaten all odds to win the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Prominent among these odds was the agrarian crisis that rural India is currently in the throes of. Since 2014, the country has suffered two major droughts and 850-odd...
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