-The Hindustan Times Underprivileged people of Muktsar district, the home turf of Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal, received a lion's share for construction of houses in 2011 in the run-up to the assembly elections, it has emerged. Funds to the tune of over Rs. 40 crore were pumped into Muktsar district alone from the social infrastructure fund (SIF) to help economically weaker sections (EWS) construct or repair their houses, while five districts,...
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Aruna Roy and Nikhil Dey, RTI activists interviewed by Vidya Subrahmaniam
-The Hindu A recent Supreme Court judgment and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s openly expressed views in favour of privacy have raised concerns that attempts are being made to dilute the spirit of the RTI Act and limit its use. Aruna Roy and Nikhil Dey, the RTI’s movement’s leading lights, share their worries with Vidya Subrahmaniam. * Seven years after its enactment, has the RTI Act even partially fulfilled its objectives? Has it...
More »Anjali Damania, the homemaker who took on the powerful -Ketaki Ghoge
-The Hindustan Times For now, it looks like India Against Corruption member Anjali Damania has had the proverbial last laugh. In the last week of September, when Damania revealed on national TV channel that BJP’s national president Nitin Gadkari had rebuffed her when she went to meet him for helping her in the irrigation scam, many in the media said this was an act of harakiri for the activist. They reasoned to her that...
More »Kejriwal targets Gadkari -Gargi Parsai
-The Hindu "Collusion with Ajit Pawar to get Vidarbha land for his NGO" Training its guns on the Bharatiya Janata Party, India Against Corruption (IAC) on Wednesday alleged that the party president Nitin Gadkari took undue favours from the Maharashtra government in allotment of land acquired from Vidarbha farmers for a “public purpose.” For their generations-old land the farmers were compensated with a paltry sum of Rs. 5,000 per acre in 1981-82. Addressing...
More »Prime Minister’s pitch sharpens the RTI divide-Pankaj Sharma
-DNA Dr Manmohan Singh rarely speaks his mind and when he speaks, people listen, as claimed by US president Barack Obama. But this time, a rather reserved-in-speech prime minister is at the receiving end for speaking his mind on the Right to Information (RTI) Act from various quarters. At a recent Convention of Central Information Commissioners, Singh cautioned against frivolous and vexatious use of the RTI. While the debate on the uses...
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