Saikat Dutta of The Outlook magazine and Vinita Kamte, wife of killed Mumbai police officer Ashok Kamte, are among the seven winners of this year's National RTI Awards, announced on Monday by the Public Cause Research Foundation. The foundation also organised a ceremony to honour the 10 RTI activists who were killed this year. The awards were decided by a jury consisting, among others, of Infosys founder N.R. Narayana Murthy; the former...

In a 12 December interview, Director-General of the J&K Police (JKP) Kuldeep Khoda was questioned by Tribune journalist Jupinderjit Singh about complaints that the JKP was ignoring RTI applications.  At one point, Mr. Khoda stated that the Police  “will not entertain [RTI applications] on investigations of any case,” explaining this information “could help the accused due to which the department generally discouraged such applications.” The DGP’s stance is problematic.  On one...

The appointment of P.J. Thomas as the Central Vigilance Commissioner comes under Supreme Court scrutiny.ON November 8, a Supreme Court Bench comprising Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia and Justices K.S. Radhakrishnan and Swatanter Kumar asked the Attorney-General, G.E. Vahanvati, whether Central Vigilance Commissioner P.J. Thomas was an “outstanding civil servant” as required by the Central Vigilance Commission Act.The Bench was yet to get a firm reply to the question on December...

nformation commissioner Satyanand Mishra has been appointed the new Chief Information Commissioner to succeed A N Tiwari. The decision was taken by a high-level committee headed by PM Manmohan Singh that included Leader of Opposition Sushma Swaraj and law minister Veerappa Moily on Monday. The appointment has been sent for presidential approval as required under law. Mishra, who earlier held charge as secretary in the department of personnel and training (DoPT),...

The National Advisory Council is set to oppose the Centre’s proposal to dilute the Right to Information Act through a new set of rules.A meeting of the panel’s working group on transparency, accountability and governance — headed by RTI activist Aruna Roy — objected to the move to compress applications for information to only one matter at a time and set a word limit of 250.The sub-committee that recently consulted...