RIGHT TO INFORMATION


Moneylife Digital Team 21 April 2021
“We are faced with a very serious and difficult situation in this country, and in the entire banking sector as well. What we need, is to set a group of really engaged and concerned individuals, who take up these issues at various levels, including seeking information through Right to...

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Even as the legal validity of Tamil Nadu State Information Commissioner S. Muthuraj's recommendation - to send nine IAS officers on compulsory retirement for dereliction of duty - is questioned, it will surely sound alarm bells ringing in the minds of all public information officials (PIO)...

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India's biggest and richest civic body, the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is facing an acute staff shortage with around 33 percent posts lying vacant, till Sep. 2020, as per replies to a RTI query here on Saturday.   Of the 110,509 sanctioned posts under direct and...

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The sustained campaign by Right to Information (RTI) activists across Maharashtra, under the umbrella of the virtual RTI Katta, to propel the state government to undertake virtual hearings for second appeals and every other quasi-judicial hearings has received a push with Abha Shukla, the...

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Ten days after the Supreme Court admonished the Indian government for not having filed a reply, for a good one year, to the petition filed by member of Parliament (MP) Jairam Ramesh, the department of personnel and training (DoPT), finally on 5th March filed a counter affidavit insisting...

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We have rarely heard of any recoveries of penalties slammed on public information officers (PIOs), but this one surely takes the cake!    Neeraj Kumar Gupta, the central information commissioner, in an order dated 19 February 2021, states, “If the Central Information Commission (CIC)...

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Shivanand Dwivedi, a noted social activist in Madhya Pradesh, had filed a Right to Information (RTI) application seeking information on action taken against corrupt officials of the panchayat at Rewa and a couple of other districts. However, he did not get any information even after filing...

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The tenacious campaign for the passing of the Right to Information (RTI) Act, which was steered by Aruna Roy’s National Campaign for Peoples’ Right to Information (NCPRI) in the 1990s, received great impetus, thanks to justice PB Sawant, who, as chairman of the Press Council of India,...

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Going by the research conducted and compiled in the book Life and Death in the Time of RTI, the 13 slain RTI activists of Maharashtra between 2010 and 2018 have yet to get even an iota of justice, thanks to a callous criminal justice system and apathy by the state administration, society in...

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Moneylife Digital Team 08 February 2021
The relationship between electoral bonds (EBs) and elections and donors (buyers of EB) is becoming quite predictable. Over the past three years and during all 14 phases, Mumbai has remained the top buyer of EBs. However, the recent sale of EBs by the State Bank of India (SBI) shows that it...

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Captured in the 110-page report titled Life and Death in the Time of RTI (Case Studies of Maharashtra), are detailed findings about 13 Right to Information (RTI) activists and users of Maharashtra who were brutally killed between 2010 and 2018. Sadly, the challenges faced during the study...

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Over the past few years, Maharashtra witnessed brutal killing of Right to Information (RTI) activists from across the state. While studying and writing  a book on this, what my fellow researcher, writer Prasannakumar Keskar, and I found was the gross failure of the criminal justice system to...

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As per Section 6 (2) of the Right to Information (RTI) Act, “An applicant making a request for information shall not be required to give any reason for requesting the information or any other personal details except those that may be necessary for contacting him.’’   However, in...

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The mystery of Prime Minister's Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations Fund (PM CARES Fund) and the attempts by everyone in the Union government to keep all information about it secret makes mockery of transparency in public life. Take, for example, the fact that PM CARES Fund...

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Last month, prime minister (PM) Narendra Modi announced that the Central government had deposited Rs18,000 crore in the bank accounts of more than 90 million poor and marginal farmer households under the PM-KISAN Samman Nidhi Yojana (PM-KISAN Yojana) and that he would ensure that it would go...

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Moneylife Digital Team 12 January 2021
In yet another example, how benefits meant for deserving citizens are ending up with undeserving beneficiaries, reports quoting a reply received under the Right to Information (RTI) Act reveal that the Union government paid Rs1,364 crore to 20 lakh people who are not the right beneficiaries...

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The dominance of bureaucrats in the information commission can lead you to conflict of interest situations as, when they become information commissioners, they hail from the same background and share the same mindset as that of the public authorities that come under the RTI Act and so would...

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While a large proportion of the RTI (Right to Information) applicants’ second appeals and complaints disposed  by information commissioners (ICs) are because of wrongful denial or delay in providing information by the public authorities, the trend of second appeals being returned to the...

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Downloading and using mobile apps is the way to go for various entertainments and everyday services that you seek, as your phone has become a one-stop virtual platform for your real-life activities. Adding to the ocean of help that’s accessible at the tip of your fingers, Moneylife Foundation...

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At an all-party meeting held on 4 December 2020 about the progress made regarding COVID-19 vaccine administration, prime minister (PM) Narendra Modi announced that healthcare workers, frontline workers and the elderly who are already suffering from co-morbidities will be vaccinated on a...

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