-The Deccan Chronicle   As the year 2011 comes to an end, the ministry of rural development is yet to find answers to slippage within the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA). However, Union rural development minister Jairam Ramesh gave a new approach by unveiling new policies for the Naxal-affected areas. Taking charge of the ministry later in the middle of the year, Mr Ramesh highlighted that the demand for the job...

-The Times of India   Work at the offices of information commissioners across the state has slowed down due to staff shortage, resulting in a pile of 19,000 pending RTI appeals. Of the 144 posts sanctioned by the state for the eight benches of state information commissioners, including the chief, 50 have not been filled. Apart from pending appeals, there are 3,447 complaints that need to be addressed. RTI activist Mohammed Afzal said...

-The Hindu   Alarmed over the declining child sex ratio across the country, the Union government has set up a Sectoral Innovation Council to look into the entire gamut of issues connected with the sharp drop in the number of girls per thousand boys in the ages of 0-6. The council will identify interventions that have worked and those which did not and also suggest innovative strategies, approaches and methods of interference to...

From 1,865 in 2006, the backlog of applications at the Central Information Commission has swelled to above 22,700. Activists say the RTI Act will lose its bite in a few years if the present state of affairs continues. In September 2006, an RTI applicant sought a simple list of schemes approved under the Urban Land Ceiling Act. The government department concerned demanded Rs 16 lakh from him. He appealed against...

-The Deccan Chronicle Henceforth if any government agency denies information under Right to Information Act (RTI), applicants need not wait for years for the intervention of the state information commission. Instead they can approach the district consumer disputes redressal forum. In a land mark judgment, II additional district consumer disputes redressal forum, of the city of Seshadripu ram has ruled that RTI applicants are also consumers and it is the responsibility...