Between the technical rigour and finality of CAG audit and people's airing of grievances, a new audit system that subscribes to, and strengthens, open government may be waiting to be born. The new system is envisaged as one where the CAG’s formal audit includes the relatively new concept of community-led social audit . The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Guarantee Act, 2005 (MGNREGA) presents an opportunity to do this. Traditionally, auditing is a...

Indian civil society was dismayed and horror-struck when human rights activist Dr Binayak Sen, who has spent over three decades caring for the poor in tribal areas of central India, was sentenced to life imprisonment for ‘sedition’ along with two others, Piyush Guha and Narayan Sanyal by a Raipur Sessions Court judge.  Protests are taking place everywhere in the country and the members of India’s vibrant civil society, peoples’ movements,...

West Bengal businessman says he was illegally detained and interrogated for five days before his arrest was staged on May 6, 2007 Defence maintains that all evidence was planted by Chhattisgarh police Discrepancy in SLP is a typo, says investigating officer S.S. Rajpoot At 10.45 a.m. on May 1, 2007 Pijush Guha checked into the Mahindra Hotel here and vanished. The hotel register indicates that he checked out at 8.45 p.m. the same...

Right to Information (RTI) activist Vijay Kumbhar has demanded that there should be some restriction on supply of free information to the applicants belonging to below poverty line (BPL). As per RTI Act, 2005, section 7, the applicant would pay the fee as prescribed for information to be provided in printed or in electronic format. But no such fee shall be charged from the persons who are below poverty line (BPL). Kumbhar...

The first step towards opening "secret" files maintained by civil servants and public authorities was taken by Parliament through Freedom of Information Act, 2002. It was replaced by Right to Information Act in 2005. The objective was to give meaning to the word "civil servant". For, the babus had been groomed by the system to hide almost everything from those for whose service they were employed. Attitude is an important aspect...