-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Centre on Friday notified stringent plastic waste management rules to regulate use of the hazardous material and handle the waste generated by it. Besides, it also banned use of plastic carry bags of less than 50 microns in thickness as against the existing norms of less than 40 microns. Be it manufacturers, shopkeepers, street vendors or waste generators including individuals, institutions and organisers of big...

-The Hindu Business Line As the Right to Information Act completes 10 years, we examine how RTI has changed people’s lives, become a byword for democracy, and helped alter the relationship between citizen and state Mintu Devi’s relationship with the ration shop changed the day she filed an RTI. In the jhuggis of New Seemapuri, situated on the northeastern edge of Delhi, she is a legend. The 37-year-old mother of four is...

-Down to Earth From providing agricultural information for specific countries to identifying trends in the sector, censuses serve a variety of purpose In the backdrop of a round of country-driven agricultural censuses which will begin in 2016 to gather information and statistics on the global agriculture sector, senior FAO statiscian Jairo Castano discusses with Down To Earth the importance of the exercise. * How helpful are agricultural censuses in gathering information and statistics...

-Tehelka As change.org starts its Hindi version, Preethi Herman, who heads the largest online social change portal in the country, speaks to Nikita Lamba about how ordinary people are being empowered to bring about the changes they want to see. * What drove you to start this venture in Hindi considering that the netizens of today’s world use English for communication? The lingua franca of about 47 percent of India’s internet population is...

-The Indian Express A number of significant disclosures were forced by the RTI, including the information regarding 2G and Commonwealth Games and so on. The Right to Information Act is now 10 years old — long enough to give us a fair idea of how it has performed on the ground. Riding on a huge wave of civil society activism, it started on a positive note and made unexpected impact early...