India’s transparency watchdog the Central Information Commission has decided to take upon itself the task of safeguard interests of the Right To Information (RTI) applicants who face harassment for seeking information. In 2010, 28 RTI activists were allegedly attacked after filing their applications and this year two activists Manglaram of Rajasthan and Amarnath. India's transparency watchdog the Central Information Commission has decided to take upon itself the task of safeguard interests of...

All pending information sought by a Right to Information (RTI) activist, who has subsequently been murdered, will henceforth be placed in the public domain. This decision was taken by the Central Information Commission (CIC), which has been under pressure to do its bit to stem the mounting casualties of RTI activists and applicants. The nature of information sought, the CIC believes, will reveal the motive for the murder. In a resolution...

Central Information Commission (CIC) has come out with a landmark resolution to combat unending assaults on right to information (RTI) activists. According to the resolution, if the commission receives a complaint regarding an assault on or murder of an information-seeker, it will examine pending RTI applications of the victim and order the departments to publish the requested information suo motu on their websites. The resolution was mooted by information commissioner Shailesh...

Information Commissioner Shailesh Gandhi sold off his business in 2003 to do something relevant. The Indian Institute of Technology-Mumbai alumnus soon became a prolific user of the Right To Information Act and filed more than 800 RTI applications. He was appointed the Information Commissioner at the Central Information Commission, New Delhi, in 2008. In this freewheeling interview with rediff.com's Priyanka, Gandhi says that appellants must understand that law describes 'information' as something...

When the controversial Finance Ministry note to the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) on P. Chidambaram's role in 2G spectrum allocation was traced to a Right to Information application, there was surprise — and some concern — both within the government and in RTI circles. The government's discomfiture was understandable: The RTI Act, which was its proud creation, recoiled on it much like the boon that Lord Shiva granted Basmasura. In the...