-ThePrint.in Data shows 99.9% of all Electoral bonds bought so far are worth Rs 10 lakh or 1 crore. These bonds do not bear name of the donor. New Delhi: Electoral bonds, brought in to make the system of political funding “more transparent”, seem to have further concentrated donations in the hands of corporates and other high net-worth donors, instead of democratising them. Nearly 100 per cent of the bonds purchased so...

-TheWire.in The letter by the former Delhi chief justice highlights the dangers of decriminalising the Companies Act, introducing Electoral bonds, weakening the RTI Act and not implementing of the Lokpal Act and Whistleblowers Protection Act. New Delhi: In a letter sent to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, former chief justice of Delhi high court and noted rights activist A.P. Shah has lamented that “instead of increasing transparency and accountability and making the deterrents...

-Hindustan Times Election Commission of India (ECI) is outgunned when it comes to confronting those who circumvent existing campaign finance rules and lacks power to sanction candidates. It is a truism to note that political finance sits at the heart of corruption in modern India. While politicians publicly lament the status quo, they privately profit from the current system. Therefore, the fact that the Narendra Modi government has made reforming political finance...

-ThePrint.in The Financial Sector Reforms and Legislation Division has agreed with the EC’s view, which is that the new laws are ‘retrograde’ and need to be withdrawn. New Delhi: The Election Commission’s concerns over the transparency of Electoral bonds, introduced via the Finance Act, 2017, have been supported by the Financial Sector Reforms and Legislation Division of the finance ministry. According to an RTI filed by activist Commodore Lokesh Batra (retd), an official...

-Newsclick.in “According to media reports, the proposed amendments seek to fundamentally weaken the institution of the information commissions by allowing the central and state governments to decide salaries of commissioners,” says NCPRI Press Release. Among the bills listed under the ‘Legislative Business’ to be carried out during the monsoon session of Lok Sabha,which will be held from July 18 to August 10, is ‘The Right to Information (Amendment) Bill, 2018’. Although included...