KEY TRENDS   • Oxfam India's 2023 India Supplement report on poverty and inequality in India reveals that the gap between the rich and the poor is widening. Following the pandemic in 2019, the bottom 50 per cent of the population have continued to see their wealth chipped away. By 2020, their income share was estimated to have fallen to only 13 per cent of the national income and have less than 3...

-The Hindu CIC rules information not exempted under Right to Information Act, Union Home Ministry says records destroyed every six months. Even as the controversy over the Government of India allegedly deploying Pegasus spyware to snoop on top politicians, journalists, activists etc refuses to die down, the Ministry of Home Affairs has sprung a surprise saying it maintains no data of lawful interceptions made by authorised intelligence/law–enforcing agencies. In a written submission before...

-MoneyLife.in An application filed under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, seeking information about the purchase of the spyware `Pegasus’ from Israel-based NSO group and the availing of services from NSO is presently languishing as a second appeal at the Central Information Commission (CIC) for the past several months. It was filed with the CIC after the Central Public Information Officers (CPIOs) and the first appellate authorities (FAAs) of both the...

-IANS/ Business Standard The Centre on Tuesday told the Supreme Court that due to "comprehensive policies and steps" taken by both Central and state governments, there have been no starvation deaths in recent times The Centre on Tuesday told the Supreme Court that due to "comprehensive policies and steps" taken by both Central and state governments, there have been no starvation deaths in recent times, even during the Covid pandemic, but the...

-The Hindu Statement comes after it recently argued against disclosing info related to committee The Centre has denied the very existence of a committee set up to oversee medical oxygen supply during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The statement comes just two weeks after it argued strenuously before the Central Information Commission (CIC) against disclosing information about this committee on the grounds of strategic interests, commercial confidences, intellectual property and Cabinet papers. Last week,...