A rising number of cases of blackmail of government officers by using the Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005, are being reported in RTI circles. Some of these cases came out in the open during the hearing of second appeals by the state information commissioner (SIC) Pune, Vijay Kuvelekar, recently. After a particularly gruelling hearing, a gram sevak from Satara broke down before the SIC and revealed that in her village...

Soon after he exposed how bricks were bought for six times their value for roads that were never built in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, Amarnath Pandey was shot near his home. The bullet, which he believes was fired by contractors who were benefiting from the brick scam, clipped his ear and grazed his skull, leaving him in hospital for weeks. Pandey, 56, a doctor from Robertsganj, a sleepy city...

There are about 20,000 Right To Information (RTI) applications pending before the central information commission, former chief information commissioner of India Wajahat Habibullah said here Friday. If people have to wait for long for the information they seek, then there is no justice and the act becomes useless, added Habibullah. The CIC ex-chief was attending a three-day national campaign for people's right to information on the theme 'Reclaiming Democracy', which began here...

The CBI should be taken out of the purview of the Right to Information Act (RTI) to block information requests that could put lives of investigators at risk, solicitor general, Gopal Subramanium has advised the government. Subramanium has recommended that the CBI be exempted in light of the "complex and dangerous situations in which the Central Bureau of Investigation has to work". "Its officers need to be protected from dangers which...

The Right to Information Act 2005 is likely to figure prominently on the agenda of the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council when it meets on March 24. Discussion will centre on the two amendments to its rules that have been proposed by the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT). One, to restrict each application to 250 words. And two, to confine one application to one subject. The Right to Information Rules,...