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...

-Press release by Satark Nagrik Sangathan dated October 11, 2022 Tomorrow (October 12, 2022) marks 17 years of implementation of the RTI Act in India. The law has empowered millions of people to seek information and hold the government accountable. Under the RTI law, information commissions are the final appellate authority and are mandated to safeguard and facilitate people’s fundamental right to information. Information commissions (ICs) have been set up at...

-ANI/ThePrint.in The Delhi High court on Tuesday sought a response from authorities including the central government on a petition seeking disclosure of statistical information on state-sponsored electronic surveillance under the Right to Information Act. Justice Yashwant Varma directed the respondents to file a response on the merit of the petition moved by Apar Gupta within two weeks Now the matter has been listed for November 9, 2022 for further hearing. The petition has challenged...

-Press release by World Meteorological Organization (WMO) dated 18 May 2022 Geneva, 18 May 2022 (WMO): Four key climate change indicators – greenhouse gas concentrations, sea level rise, ocean heat and ocean acidification – set new records in 2021. This is yet another clear sign that human activities are causing planetary scale changes on land, in the ocean, and in the atmosphere, with harmful and long-lasting ramifications for sustainable development and...

-Hindustan Times Hearing the RTI application of Bhupendra Kumar Pandey, the commission ordered the ‘symbolic punishment’ on Monday. Lucknow: The Uttar Pradesh State Information Commission has asked a public information officer (PIO) to feed mid-day meal to 250 school students in Ghazipur as a “symbolic punishment” for delay in replying to an RTI application. Hearing the RTI application of Bhupendra Kumar Pandey, the commission ordered the ‘symbolic punishment’ on Monday. Information commissioner Ajay Kumar...