lain RTI activist Amit Jethava’s father, Bhikha, has claimed that a whopping Rs 1 crore, and not Rs 15 lakh as is being stated, was passed for the contract killing of his son. He alleged that the amount was raised by Junagadh BJP MP Dinesh Solanki from various illegal miners on the pretext of fighting the Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by Amit in the Gujarat High Court against the illegal...
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'Vedanta standards apply to Polavaram' by Sreelatha Menon
N C Saxena, who led the committee which recommended against permitting mining of the Niyamgiri hills in Orissa, says the same approach should be adopted for Andhra Pradesh’s mammoth Polavaram hydro project, too. If there is violation of the Forest Rights Act (FRA) there, too, it should not be allowed, as that is the law of the land, Saxena told Business Standard. The Polavaram dam being constructed on the Godavari river by...
More »Revenge attacks by Lyla Bavadam
In Maharashtra, attacks on citizen-activists have increased with the greater use of RTI; four activists have been killed in the last seven months IN the late 1970s, a woman named Shobha Shirodkar was the victim of a hit-and-run in Mumbai. It was no accident. It was a case of murder because Shobha, who was the principal of a prestigious school in the city, had opposed the land mafia and was believed...
More »Cut out the shortcuts by Sunita Narain
The Ministry of Environment and Forest’s decision to stall the Vedanta project in Orissa must be understood. The ‘story’ is about a powerful company breaking the law. But it is equally about a development puzzle in which the richest lands of India are where the poorest people subsist. The N.C. Saxena committee has indicted the mining conglomerate on three counts of breaking the environmental laws. One, it took over and...
More »Martyrs to transparency by Venkitesh Ramakrishnan
In the five years of the Right to Information Act, activists who use it have faced reprisal across the country. OCTOBER 2010 marks the fifth anniversary of the Right to Information (RTI) Act. The Act and its implementation have been described in both administrative circles and civil society as “revolutionary” , “a blow for transparency”, “a check on corrupt practices” and “a people's intervention tool with tremendous impact”. Social activists and...
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