-Counterview.net Speaking at the western region consultation on the Right to Information (RTI) Act, whose two-day virtual session began on Thursday, Aruna Roy, formerly a member of Congress chief Sonia Gandhi-sponsored national advisory panel, has said that governments should recognise RTI has emerged as common citizens’ right to seek answers from authorities instead of seeing RTI pleas with suspicion. A pioneer of the RTI movement in India, Roy objecting to recent orders...

-Hindustan Times The chairman of the 15th Finance Commission, NK Singh, spoke to Zia Haq about the final report of the Commission for 2021-26 which has now been made public. Edited excerpts. The Constitution, through Article 280 to 281, provides for finance commissions every five years as a mechanism for sharing of taxes and revenues vertically between the Centre and states; and horizontally among all states, based on levels of development, demographic...

-PTI/ The Hindu The Minister of State for Electronics and IT Sanjay Dhotre noted that the rising popularity of non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) along with e-commerce has also expanded the scope of digital payments. Over 2.9 lakh cyber security incidents related to digital banking were reported in 2020, Parliament was informed on Thursday. As per the information reported to and tracked by Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), a total number of 1,59,761;...

-PTI/ The Hindu The RBI is targeting to roll out the e-Integrated Ombudsman Scheme in June 2021 The Reserve Bank on Friday announced it will be integrating consumer grievances redressal under a single ombudsman as against three schemes working at present. There are dedicated ombudsman schemes devoted to consumer grievance redressal in banking, non-bank finance companies and digital transactions, respectively, at present. “To make the alternate dispute redress mechanism simpler and more responsive to...

-IDROnline.org The story of a self-help group that boosted livelihoods and household incomes in Odisha, depicted through Madhubani art. In Koraput district, Odisha, lies a remote village called Kanjariguda, home to an Adivasi community of farmers who predominantly grow ragi and rice. The village is so remote that villagers have to walk several kilometres—across forests and mountains—to hull their rice or access basic services such as mobile charging, photocopying, or printing. In 2019,...