-The Hindu On November 8, Meghalaya’s Agnes Kharshiing and her associate Amita Sangma became the latest among 18 Right to Information activists in the northeastern region to have been either killed or assaulted or harassed. They were — as the police said — assaulted by a group of criminals at Tuber Sohshrieh in the coal- and limestone-rich East Jaintia Hills district. The spot where they were waylaid is not far from...

-TheWire.in Family members of slain Kedar Singh Jindan, along with several locals and activists, have demanded a CBI probe into the matter. New Delhi: Even as the Centre dithers on implementing the Whistleblowers Protection Act, which was passed four years ago to protect anyone who exposes alleged wrongdoing in government bodies, another name has been added to the growing list of RTI activists who have been killed for raising disturbing questions. The...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday directed the Centre and nine states, including Bengal, to file affidavits within four weeks stating by when they would fill their vacant posts of information commissioners and, in some cases, even chief information commissioners. The bench of Justices A.K. Sikri and Ashok Bhushan were hearing a petition from RTI activist Anjali Bharadwaj, who cited four vacancies in the Central Information Commission and many...

-CaravanMagazine.in Nearly a year ago, the government of India constituted a committee of experts chaired by the former Supreme Court judge BN Srikrishna to draft a data-protection law for India. Almost immediately, the committee became mired in controversy—it was first criticised for the lack of civil-society representatives among its members, and subsequently for the opacity of its proceedings, and its inefficient public consultation on the data-protection framework. In recent months, the...

-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...