-The Times of India   Taking note of frequent threats posed by certain government officials and those in power to RTI activists in Manipur, a group of the rights defenders has formed an ad hoc committee - Transparency Initiatives Manipur (TIR) - with the primary objective to fight the menace. TIR convener and prominent RTI activist Wahengbam Joykumar said the forum was formed recently after a meeting of RTI activists and other individuals,...

The Right to Information Act was the great white hope of Indian citizens who are consistently denied rightful information. Not only does it specify that most information in the public domain would be provided to citizens by right, but it also ensured that failure to do so by the bloated bureaucracy would result in penalties for erring officials. Trust the government, though, to subvert its own good intentions. The state government has...

-The Times of India   Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti (KMSS) general secretary Akhil Gogoi is known for drawing huge crowds in his demonstration programmes. But on Monday, when the RTI activist launched an indefinite sit-in stir against the recent hike in electricity tariff, he had only three men and a woman by his side. Is people's support for his campaign on social issues on the decline? Akhil reacts instantly. "The government...

The government ignores the NAC, puts out a diluted draft bill on food security As many as 46 per cent of the malnourished children of the world—of whom at least 75,000 die every month—are in India. Another alarming official statistic—36 per cent of Indians live on less than Rs 20 a day. One would think figures like this would act as a reality check for a government that proudly chants...

In a season when every self-styled warrior against corruption is trying to look for a new weapon to fight it, my guest today is Satyananda Mishra, Chief Information Commissioner—someone who has in his control the strongest of those weapons, the RTI. Actually when it all began, nobody thought it would be so effective. In a period of five-and-a-half years, it has touched the hearts and minds of people. The number of...