-The Indian Express Union Minister M Venkaiah Naidu has rejected the Congress allegations, saying the proposed Rules regarding the word limit and application fees remain the same as they were under the UPA government. On March 31, the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), the nodal department for the implementation of the Right to Information (RTI), put on its web site a circular titled “Framing RTI Rules, 2017 in supersession of...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Accused of diluting the RTI Act and weakening the architecture of accountability, the Narendra Modi government has gone into overdrive to dispute the allegation that comes at a time it is already under attack for injecting further opacity into political funding. Some erroneous media reports on the proposed RTI Rules, 2017 - circulated by the department of personnel and training (DoPT) on March 31 and open for consultations...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: A clutch of legal amendments the Narendra Modi government has introduced to allow corporate political donors to mask their contributions drags the world's largest democracy against global currents of rising transparency in electoral funding, analysts and activists have warned. From Brazil to Bangladesh, and Croatia to Cyprus, countries of diverse sizes and varied histories with democracy have over the past decade adopted laws and rules aimed at making...

-PTI Cases relating to delay in fixation and payment of pension and arrears to be dealt with urgently New Delhi: Right to information (RTI) applications seeking pension details should be replied to within 48 hours as it pertains to the "life and liberty" of the elderly, the Central Information Commission has held as it pitched for early redressal of such grievances. The Commission also directed that if an RTI application is a genuine...

-The Indian Express Supreme Court must urgently hear and settle issues of privacy and exclusion raised in the context of the UID project Coercion, illegality, contempt of court and exclusion have become characteristics by which people recognise the UID project. It started with its use in PDS and LPG, but, by now, has spread like a contagion to all manner of databases. In just the last 20 days, the government has...