-CivilSocietyOnline.com For the past decade state governments have launched a series of Internet-based initiatives to deliver services more efficiently. Technology has been seen as the best way of bypassing red tape and corruption in the system to reach the poor directly with benefits. Beneficiaries are identified through biometrics and a series of tech solutions like smart cards, micro ATMs and so on. The result of these efforts is that India is...

-The Hindu Jaipur: Ironic though it may sound, a unique memorial celebrating the Right to Information has come up in the Beawar town of Rajasthan — where the RTI movement had started 20 years ago — at a time when the Bharatiya Janata Party government in the State has opted to delete chapters on the evolution of RTI campaign and law from its school textbooks. Hundreds of people from all walks of...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Central Information Commission on Wednesday issued show cause notices to five national parties - BJP, CPI, CPM, NCP and BSP - for non-compliance of its 2013 order, even as it gave Congress four weeks to respond. The full bench of the commission has given the six parties time till June 20. In its 2013 order, the CIC had recognised parties as public authorities and directed...

-The Indian Express Organisation that played a big role in state to make RTI a national Act to write to Chief Minister on the issue Jaipur: After doing away with references to India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and several other other freedom fighters from school History curriculum, the Rajasthan government’s revised syllabus has also removed a page highlighting the Right to Information (RTI) Act. A prominent section on page 105, which...

-The Hindu Rather than criminalising bribegivers, the objective of combating coercive corruption would be achieved if the government puts in place a grievance redress mechanism The Prevention of Corruption Act (PCA), the key legislation which defines what constitutes corruption and prescribes penalties for corruption-related offences, is set to be amended by Parliament. The proposed Bill, now before a select committee of the Rajya Sabha, includes several contentious amendments that are likely to...