This National Advisory Council might not be as powerful as its namesake and as freewheeling in its mandate, but it will oversee the implementation of the Right to Education, the single most important intervention in the field of education since independence. HRD minister Kapil Sibal, who will be the ex-officio chairperson of this 14-member NAC, has cleared the names of eight members. They are Kiran Karnik, former president of NASSCOM;...

A law empowering Indians to seek information from government to promote accountability and transparency has brought change to urban India, but has largely left out the country's rural poor, social Activists say. The Right to Information (RTI) Act - similar to the Freedom of Information Act in the United States - was enacted almost five years ago and is aimed at providing a practical way for all citizens to access...

A clutch of Activists questioned the manner in which government went about choosing information commissioners,or the authorities tasked with facilitating public inquiry under the Right To Information (RTI) Act. In a press conference, prominent RTI Activists, including Magsaysay awardee Arvind Kejriwal, alleged that Department of Personnel and Training hadn’t prescribed rules to select information commissioners. This, they added, encouraged an arbitary selection of individuals to these posts. India’s RTI Act of...

The question of whether it is possible to move — and how swiftly — towards universalising food entitlements under the proposed National Food Security Act, dominated the second meeting of the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC) here on Thursday, NAC sources told TheHindu. Universalising food entitlements will hinge on availability of food grains, and on whether the exchequer is in a position to bear additional cost of food subsidy...

EVEN AS BP battles to check the damage caused by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, India is showing how far it is from recovering from its own worst industrial accident. A group of government ministers appointed to suggest remedies for the disaster in 1984 at Bhopal, in central India, made its recommendations on June 21st. It urged the government to step up its efforts to extradite Warren...