-The Indian Express The Prime Minister’s Office, which manages the fund, has declined to furnish details of contributions received, saying that PM CARES is “not a public authority under the...RTI Act”. IT’S NOT just a wide range of central educational institutions, at least seven public sector banks, seven other leading financial institutions and insurers, and the RBI, have together contributed Rs 204.75 crore from their staff salaries to the Prime Minister’s Citizen...

-Press release by Indian Coordination Committee of Farmers Movements dated 23rd September, 2020 ICCFM is a non-partisan national alliance of farmers movements representing 12 farmers' organizations across India based in UP, MP, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, and Haryana. Bharatiya Kisan Union, Karnataka State Farmers Association, Tamilaga Vivasayigal Sangham are among the major farmer movement. As with many other farmers organizations in this country, ICCFM is gravely worried about the anti-farmer bills...

Although social activists and concerned economists demanded at least Rs. 1 lakh crore to be earmarked in favour of the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), the Finance Minister in her budget speech on 1st February allocated only Rs.61,500 crore to it for the financial year 2020-21. As compared to the fund spent on MGNREGA in 2019-20 (i.e. revised estimate of Rs.71,001.81 crore), the amount set aside for the...

-The Indian Express The Delhi High Court has extended the window for public feedback to the draft Environment Impact Assessment Notification 2020. A look at the changes proposed in the norms, and why these bother activists. On Tuesday, the Delhi High Court extended till August 11 the deadline for public feedback on the draft Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) Notification 2020. This was after the government had changed the deadline from August 10...

-The Hindu Proper implementation of the Right to Information Act is more crucial now than ever before Right to Information (RTI) applications seeking information pertaining to the PM CARES Fund have been stonewalled. No information exists on the official website of the Fund regarding the amount collected, names of donors, expenditure incurred, or details of beneficiaries. The trust deed of the fund chaired by the Prime Minister is not available for public...