The Pune police are in the process of setting up a three-member committee to supervise protection provided to Right to Information Act (RTI) activists as per a recent direction of the home department. Following the brutal murder of RTI activist Satish Shetty in Talegaon Dabhade on January 13, 2010, the issue of protection of RTI activists had come to the fore. The state government had issued a government resolution (GR) on...

The Planning Commission has shot down a proposal of the Central Information Commission (CIC) to bring private entities executing projects under the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) mode under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, arguing that it is applicable on public authority and not on private companies. "RTI is not Right to Information on private companies. It pertains to information on public authority," deputy chairman of Planning Commission, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, said...

RTI activists are angry with the state government for having appointed three commissioners to the Tamil Nadu Information Commission just before the model code of conduct came into force, with zero transparency. The government announced the appointments on Tuesday, hours before the election commission announced the poll date. Already, the appointment of former chief secretary KS Sripathi as the chief information commissioner is in a legal tangle after RTI activists...

A farmer and Right to Information activist from Kutch set himself on fire at a revenue office on Monday after his attempts to get information were thwarted. Jabbardan Gadhvi (45) died after dousing himself with kerosene and setting himself alight in the presence of 11 policemen. Kutch collector M Thennarsan suspended Dhavdi village's official Pravina Jadhav. The victim's brother Malhardan Gadhvi has lodged an FIR against the revenue officer Anirudhsinh...

Peasant leader and RTI activist Akhil Gogoi, who is spearheading an anti-corruption campaign in the state almost single-handedly, will move the Election Commission with details of property owned by ministers and their families ahead of the forthcoming Assembly elections. Gogoi today said the recent asset lists made public by some of the ministers revealed only a small portion of their assets, scattered across different parts of the state. “Using the RTI Act,...