-The Indian Express BRInging political parties under RTI is a bad, and anti-political, idea In a radical ruling, the chief information commissioner has decided that political parties should be open to scrutiny under the right to information. Six national parties have been asked to appoint officers to handle requests, and proactively share information about their finances and voluntary contributions, including donor information. The logic is that parties get public land and offices,...

-The Times of India LONDON: Food wastage is monumental globally, with 30 and 50% of food produced in the world (1.2-2 billion tonnes) is wasted. BRItish MPs on the International Development Committee placed the country's most exhaustive assessment of food security in parliament on Tuesday and has thrown up some seriously worrying findings. They fear that food wastage globally could be as high as 50%. Valuable resources of land, energy, fertiliser and water...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Civil society members and RTI activists sharply criticized political parties for their reluctance to accept the Central Information Commission (CIC) order BRInging them under the RTI Act. In a reflection of their cautious stance, the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) - the main applicant who had sought information on donors to political parties - filed a caveat on Tuesday with the court to prevent any...

-The Business Standard Life Insurance Council says companies need to augment their agency force with 15-20% growth every year in number of agents The life insurance industry has seen a net reduction of 7-8 lakh agents in the last four years, said V Manickam, secretary general of Life Insurance Council. This, said Manickam, is due to the fact that there are over 35 lakh agents who have been terminated from service as against...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: BJP leader and cricket administrator Arun Jaitley on Tuesday said the Central Information Commission (CIC) ruling BRInging political parties within the ambit of Right to Information (RTI) Act was per se not wrong as long as it applied to their funding. However, he was quick to introduce caveats. "The CIC logic behind applying RTI Act to political parties is that they are given land at concessional...