-National Campaign for People's Right to Information Press Release   New Delhi: The NCPRI held a dharna outside the Congress office in the morning to demand the passage of the Grievance Redress Bill & the Whistleblowers Protection Bill. Families of whistleblowers from across the country had joined the dharna. Families and colleagues of Satyendra Dubey, Ram Thakur and Shimbu Bishnoi were present at the Dharna. Rahul Gandhi, leader of the Congress...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Backed by villagers and displaced people from different states, members of 200 NGOs from across the country on Monday slammed environment and forests minister M Veerappa Moily for ignoring environment and social concerns while granting speedy clearances to mining and infrastructure projects. Alleging that recent clearances pointed to "high corruption", the groups wrote to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. They also demanded immediate rollback of the...

-Economic and Political Weekly The Right to Information mechanism is sought to be diluted by certain bodies by the arbitrary use of pre-existing procedures and rules which were enacted at a time when citizens' right to information had little or no consequence. These rules also lack procedural safeguards and have onerous fees devoid of any reasonableness. The aggrieved citizen had no choice but to approach the courts. This trend must be...

-The Hindu Benefits elude minorities, says RTI activist New Delhi: Inspired by Arvind Kejriwal's recent dharna outside the Rail Bhavan, Delhi resident Faheem Baig staged a dramatic protest, to catch the Prime Minister's attention, during the launch of the National Waqf Development Corporation here on Wednesday. Manmohan Singh had just finished his address when Mr. Baig got up and said government schemes for religious minorities had never reached the beneficiaries. The Unani practitioner and...

-The Hindustan Times Mumbai: Close to 74.2% seats meant to be set aside for students from the economically weaker sections (EWS) have not been filled up for the academic year 2013-14 in schools across the city, revealed a query sought under the Right to Information Act. Many of the schools were found not to have filled even a single seat under the EWS quota mandated by the Right to Education Act...