-The Telegraph   Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi today came out in support of movements against corruption, but said that the rule of law alone cannot check corruption even as the relay hunger strike by supporters of Anna Hazare entered its fifth day here. Admitting to corrupt practices in government offices, Gogoi said his government was taking action to check corruption, but the effort would be rendered futile if the public did not...

-The Deccan Chronicle   Shashidhar Mishra could have spent his entire life as a street vendor in his native village at Begusarai, Bihar. But he decided to get the information kept in the government files unlocked by filing more than 1,000 RTI applications. The reward he got was death. He was killed in his native village by unidentified gunmen in February 2010. Mishra is among at least 16 RTI activists who have...

Purpose of RTI Act will be lost if killings continue, says CPI(M) member The murder of RTI activist Shehla Masood in Bhopal found an echo in the Rajya Sabha on Thursday with a Communist Party of India (Marxist) member expressing serious concern over the killings across the country and demanding steps to protect whistleblowers. Raising the issue during the Zero Hour, Moin-ul-Hassan said the RTI activist was killed on a day when...

-The Economic Times   We condemn the killing of Shehla Masood, a public-spirited woman of Bhopal who used the Right to Information (RTI) Act extensively to expose corruption and misgovernance on a range of issues. The state government must bring the culprits to book and investigate any possible links of the crime to public officials whose misconduct was under her investigation. This brings the number of RTI activists killed across the country so...

-The Telegraph   A right to information campaigner who had raised questions on several tiger deaths across Madhya Pradesh was shot dead as she got into her car moments after stepping out of home this morning. Shahla Masood, known to be working on alleged malpractice in the state’s wildlife conservation, tourism and other departments, had before leaving home updated her Facebook account, urging people to support Anna Hazare’s movement against corruption. Police said the...