The CBI, which now says that it has evidence to seek the extradition of former Union Carbide chief Warren Anderson in the Bhopal gas tragedy case, had in 2002 sought dilution of charges against him. Court documents have revealed the CBI had filed an application in a Bhopal court eight years ago stating that Anderson be tried for having caused death due to negligence and not for culpable homicide not amounting...

Conflicting recollections on Bhopal tragedy highlight need to make old government papers public I was on the last unaffected train out of Bhopal that night, or so I was told. It was the Dakshni Express from Hyderabad to Delhi. There was nothing unusual at the station and next day in Delhi, I went through an entire working day unaware of that night’s news. It was not the age of 24x7 television...

While India’s new Right to Education Act seeks to bring free and compulsory education for all children, it seems to short-change them through an unrealistic vision of the private sector’s involvement. In August 2009, the Right to Education Act was passed in the Indian Parliament with no debate, by the fewer than 60 members who happened to be attending the session that day. Not that the Act was an open-and-shut...

The office of the Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister has no Public Information Officer (PIO) to receive applications filed under the Right to Information Act. An RTI application seeking details on who assisted (the then chief of Union Carbide) Warren Anderson, the main accused in the 1984 Bhopal gas disaster, to leave the country with full VVIP protocol, was returned ‘undelivered' to activist Subash Chandra Agrawal stating that “there was no post...

The Central Information Commission decides to appeal against a judgment of the Delhi High Court that threatens to disrupt its smooth functioning. SHAILESH GANDHI, a Central Information Commissioner, recently said the Right to Information (RTI) Act faced a serious threat from the government and the judiciary. His warning came in the context of the woefully inadequate government-sanctioned resources and the number of stay orders issued by High Courts on the...