RIGHT TO INFORMATION


The RTI is one of the most powerful tools and an essential democratic right of every Indian citizen. A handy guide takes you through the steps to file an effective guide The Right to Information Act, 2005 (RTI) that came into force eight years back has proven to be one of the most...

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Public Information Officers -PIOs not performing their duty of providing information is a frequent experience of an RTI activist Early this week, I once again experienced rejection, or rather telling of a brazen lie regarding the controversial water cut in Pune that was stalled recently...

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At Pune’s headquarters of the food supply department, the tehsildar is ignorant, even arrogant about proactive disclosure under Section 4 of the RTI Act Since the last one week, I have been following up with the Food Supply office of the Pune district collectorate to gather information...

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The Central Information Commission and DoPT have put detailed guidelines on suo motu disclosure by public authorities, but most PIOs continue to be ignorant or to feign ignorance about Section 4 of the RTI Act On Tuesday, I visited the Food Supply Office of the Pune district Collectorate...

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For the first time ever, a cabinet note, otherwise deemed `secret document’ is uploaded in the public domain to facilitate public consultations; thanks to public outcry A handbook issued by the Cabinet Secretariat, on guiding Parliamentarians on how to write cabinet notes states...

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The Parliamentary Committee has sought citizens’ suggestions on the RTI Amendment Bill, 2013. However, there seems to be a deliberate attempt by government to restrict responses to Hindi and English languages, thus depriving half of the population a chance to file their suggestions and...

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In order to reduce the number of individual RTI applications, Department of Personnel & Training-DoPT, has issued fresh guidelines to public authorities to suo motu publish all information as required under Section 4 of the RTI Act, based on a taskforce report. But does any public authority...

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After several weeks of disgust over political parties trying to slip out of the RTI Act, good news beckons for citizens in India and abroad who want to file RTI online Do you want to seek information under Right to Information (RTI) about public distribution of grains or demand a copy of...

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Adamant until the last few days to quickly pass the RTI Amendment Bill in Lok Sabha, on Wednesday, political parties instead decided to send it to the Parliamentary Standing Committee for further discussion and public consultation Hurrah to activists, citizens, the print, electronic and...

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Moneylife Digital Team 05 September 2013
MPs Baijayant Panda, Ajoy Kumar, Dinesh Trivedi and Omar Abdullah, along with several prominent activists have opposed the amendment in RTI Act to keep political parties out of gambit of the law Finally a better sense prevailed in the Parliament and the Right to Information (RTI)...

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If you read this researched study done by RTI scholar-activist Venkatesh Nayak on the transparency in finances of political parties across 40 under-developed, developing and developed countries, you would be ashamed at the ruckus being created by our politicians in India   The latest...

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Today, perhaps, political parties will move the bill to be passed in the Parliament, to invalidate the June 2013 order of the Central Information Commission, which declared six national political parties as ‘public authorities’ under the RTI Act. Hear some sane voices from the political...

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Subsequent to Moneylife’s report, the State Chief Information Commissioner from Maharashtra ordered that the 1,272 RTI applicants - all tribals from Jawhar taluka of Thane district be provided complete information about their claims to the forest land Political leaders are working...

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Bit by bit, through individual telephone calls, petitions, letters, ballots and multifarious ways citizens have pressurised the government to follow correct democratic procedures. However, this is not the time to rest, feels the former Central Information Commissioner Right to...

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An amendment to the RTI Act to exempt political parties from the Act is likely to be considered today in the Parliament. Citizen groups continue to fight against it Activists of the Delhi based National Campaign for People's Right to Information (NCPRI) have demanded that the Right to...

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Central Railways has asked an RTI applicant to shell out a whopping Rs81,000 for copies of reservation chart of two trains for a particular day; all by twisting its own official circulars and disregarding the RTI Act Ravindra Wabale, a resident of Ahmednagar, is not so much an activist...

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Moneylife Digital Team 12 August 2013
Claiming that it is the right of parties to announce election manifestos, all political parties except BSP and two regional parties, opposed any restriction on them in announcing freebies   Major political parties except the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) on Monday opposed any restriction...

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The former Central Information Commissioner spent about six hours on telephone at different times and has spoken with 15 MPs trying to persuade them against voting for the amendment to the RTI Act I received an email from Suresh Ediga who is an Indian in US in which he mentioned that he...

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A legal activist questions the validity of political parties going out of RTI ambit, while citizen activists in Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad and other cities hold public protests The beginning of this week has witnessed vociferous protests by leading Right to Information (RTI) activists...

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Aruna Roy leads the vociferous campaign in calling for citizens across the country through rallies, dharnas, signature campaigns and any other form of protests on 6th and 7th August, to oppose the attempt of political parties to amend the RTI law in Parliament On 6th August, the first...

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