-Down to Earth The National Democratic Alliance government's move is an assault on the independence of information commissioners, writes former Central Information Commissioner M Sridhar Acharyulu Alas! I thought the Narendra Modi government is strong enough after its re-election. But now it is scared of the Right to Information (RTI) and the Chief Information Commission (CIC), as if they are monsters who can harm the power of the powerful rulers. The Information Commissioner...
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RTI amendment: Centre has no authority to make law on states -M Sridhar Acharyulu
-Down to Earth The amendment to the RTI Act does not deserve the assent of the President, writes former Central Information Commissioner M Sridhar Acharyulu in the second of this two-part series The Union Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions told the House that Parliament's competence to enact a law to give effect to the citizens' right to obtain information is located in Entry 97 of the Union List...
More »In the shade of solar trees -Ashok Gulati
-The Indian Express Helping farmers produce solar energy can help realise the government’s target of doubling farmers’ incomes. In July, two interesting things happened that can help Indian farmers to a large extent in augmenting their incomes. First, the Union Finance Minister (FM) in her maiden budget speech asked why the annadata (farmer) cannot become the urjadata (producer of solar power). Second, in Parliament, the agriculture minister for state, responding to...
More »Why VVPATs aren't enough to build confidence in EVMs -Atanu Biswas
-Hindustan Times Still, doubts about EVMs have been planted, despite the fact that none of the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machines showed a mismatch with the EVM count. Two months after the declaration of Lok Sabha election results, conspiracy theories about possible tampering of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) are still doing the rounds. That important opposition leaders have demanded a return to paper ballots and even openly supported EVM-rigging...
More »With district-wise data, Assam govt. pushes for NRC
-The Hindu Heated debate in Assembly as data suggests many in districts dominated by indigenous people have been left out The Assam government on Thursday pushed for re-verification of the applications for the National Register of Citizens (NRC) after district-wise data presented in the Assembly suggested most people in areas bordering Bangladesh have been included in the citizenship list, while many in districts dominated by the indigenous people have been left out. This...
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