Counterview

By Our Representative
Justice Madan Lokur, retired Supreme Court judge, has told a public meeting in Delhi that the recent amendments made to the Right to Information (RTI) Act are regressive and will have an impact on the functioning of the law. Speaking on the occasion of the 14 years of the existing nce of the Act, Lokur regretted, despite their passage more than two months ago, the Central government has not made rules regarding the salary and tenure of information commissioners.

By Our Representative
The Supreme Court has asked the Union water resources secretary to submit a report on the Sardar Sarovar Narmada dam's reservoir regulation by October 21, even as directing the Madhya Pradesh government to provide basic amenities to the dam evictees.

Counterview Desk
A week after it was floated, 132 activists, academics, students, artists and other concerned citizens of Gujarat, backed by 118 living in different parts of India and the world, have signed a "solidarity letter" supporting the people of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), who, it claims, have been silenced and held captive in their own land. The signatories include faculty members and scholars of the prestigious Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A).

Counterview Desk
Referring to her her book on Aurangzeb, Audrey Truschke, assistant professor of South Asian history, Rutgers, Newark, US, has controversially claimed that in the mid-1660s, a Rajput – acting on Mughal orders – besieged Shivaji at Purandar, adding, Marathas and different Rajput lineages often acted differently from one another, even fighting each other.

By Sandeep Pandey*
Mahatma Gandhi’s spectacles are being used as an emblem for Government of India’s sanitation campaign Swachha Bharat Abhiyan (SBA). Even though Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh, the ideological parent of ruling Bhartiya Janata Party, abhors Gandhi’s ideology, yet Prime Minister Narendra Modi has decided to use Gandhi as a symbol for his drive for cleanliness.

Counterview Desk
India's senior RTI activists Nikhil Dey, Anjali Bhardwaj, Venktesh Nayak, Rakesh Reddy Dubbudu, Dr. Shaikh Ghulam Rasool, Pankti Jog and Pradip Pradhan, who are attached with the National Campaign for Peoples' Right to Information (NCPRI), have said that Union home minister Amit Shah's claim that the Government of India is committed to transparency stands in sharp contrast to its actual actions.