Gujarat govt "not transparent" in appointing information commissioners: Top RTI activist

By A Representative
Top Right to Information (RTI) activist Anjali Bharadwaj has accused the Gujarat government of failing to be transparent in the appointment of information commissioners, saying, despite clearcut Supreme Court order to fill up vacancies within a month transparently, things remain extremely secretive and nobody knows what it is doing.
"Currently, there are just two commissioners in the state information commission as against the total eight posts. Even the Gujarat government has sanctioned five posts, yet it does not seem to be doing anything to appoint them", Bharadwaj, who is co-convener of the National Campaign for People's Right to Information (NCPRI), and was in Ahmedabad in connection with a civil rights organizations' meeting, said.
The civil rights organizations' meeting, organised by well-known human rights activist Shabnam Hashmi in Ahmedabad under the banner of India Inclusive, was held to mark the anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi's historic Dandi march. Called India Unites Convention on Nonviolence, among those who addressed the meet included Justice Kurien Joseph, former Supreme Court judge.
Talking on the sidelines of the seminar, Bharadwaj, accompanied by Pankti Jog, co-convener of NCPRI from Gujarat, told newspersons, the result of non-appointment of commissioners is there for all to see. Thus, the delay in clearing RTI pleas a year ago was five months, it has now go up to one year and two months. The number of pending RTI pleas have almost doubled to 5,600.
"Following the Supreme Court order for the entire country, the Gujarat government should have appointed a search committee and made known the names of those who are its members, it should have declared the names of candidates that it might have decided to shortlist after advertising the posts. All this does not seem to have been done", they asserted.
Official Gujarat government sources, when contacted, said, while it is true that information commissioners have not been appointed and the pendency of cases has gone up, "one post was advertised in March 2018, and another was advertised in May 2018, though things did not move thereafter."

Comments

Gujarat Information Commission issues warning against misinterpretation of RTI orders

By A Representative The Gujarat Information Commission (GIC) has issued a press note clarifying that its orders limiting the number of Right to Information (RTI) applications for certain individuals apply only to those specific applicants. The GIC has warned that it will take disciplinary action against any public officials who misinterpret these orders to deny information to other citizens. The press note, signed by GIC Secretary Jaideep Dwivedi, states that the Right to Information Act, 2005, is a powerful tool for promoting transparency and accountability in public administration. However, the commission has observed that some applicants are misusing the act by filing an excessive number of applications, which disproportionately consumes the time and resources of Public Information Officers (PIOs), First Appellate Authorities (FAAs), and the commission itself. This misuse can cause delays for genuine applicants seeking justice. In response to this issue, and in acc...

'MGNREGA crisis deepening': NSM demands fair wages and end to digital exclusions

By A Representative The NREGA Sangharsh Morcha (NSM), a coalition of independent unions of MGNREGA workers, has warned that the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) is facing a “severe crisis” due to persistent neglect and restrictive measures imposed by the Union Government.

A comrade in culture and controversy: Yao Wenyuan’s revolutionary legacy

By Harsh Thakor* This year marks two important anniversaries in Chinese revolutionary history—the 20th death anniversary of Yao Wenyuan, and the 50th anniversary of his seminal essay "On the Social Basis of the Lin Biao Anti-Party Clique". These milestones invite reflection on the man whose pen ignited the first sparks of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and whose sharp ideological interventions left an indelible imprint on the political and cultural landscape of socialist China.

Gandhiji quoted as saying his anti-untouchability view has little space for inter-dining with "lower" castes

By A Representative A senior activist close to Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) leader Medha Patkar has defended top Booker prize winning novelist Arundhati Roy’s controversial utterance on Gandhiji that “his doctrine of nonviolence was based on an acceptance of the most brutal social hierarchy the world has ever known, the caste system.” Surprised at the police seeking video footage and transcript of Roy’s Mahatma Ayyankali memorial lecture at the Kerala University on July 17, Nandini K Oza in a recent blog quotes from available sources to “prove” that Gandhiji indeed believed in “removal of untouchability within the caste system.”

Targeted eviction of Bengali-speaking Muslims across Assam districts alleged

By A Representative A delegation led by prominent academic and civil rights leader Sandeep Pandey visited three districts in Assam—Goalpara, Dhubri, and Lakhimpur—between 2 and 4 September 2025 to meet families affected by recent demolitions and evictions. The delegation reported widespread displacement of Bengali-speaking Muslim communities, many of whom possess valid citizenship documents including Aadhaar, voter ID, ration cards, PAN cards, and NRC certification.

Subject to geological upheaval, the time to listen to the Himalayas has already passed

By Rajkumar Sinha* The people of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, who have somehow survived the onslaught of reckless development so far, are crying out in despair that within the next ten to fifteen years their very existence will vanish. If one carefully follows the news coming from these two Himalayan states these days, this painful cry does not appear exaggerated. How did these prosperous and peaceful states reach such a tragic condition? What feats of our policymakers and politicians pushed these states to the brink of destruction?

India's health workers have no legal right for their protection, regrets NGO network

Counterview Desk In a letter to Union labour and employment minister Santosh Gangwar, the civil rights group Occupational and Environmental Health Network of India (OEHNI), writing against the backdrop of strike by Bhabha hospital heath care workers, has insisted that they should be given “clear legal right for their protection”.

Rally in Patna: Non-farmer bodies to highlight plight of agriculture in Eastern India ahead of march to Parliament

P Sainath By A Representative Ahead of the march to Parliament on November 29-30, 2018, organized by over 210 farmer and agricultural worker organisations of the country demanding a 21-day special session of Parliament to deliberate on remedial measures for safeguarding the interest of farm, farmers and agricultural workers, a mass rally been organized for November 23, Gandhi Sangrahalaya (Gandhi Museum), Gandhi Maidan, Patna. Say the organizers, the Eastern region merits special attention, because, while crisis of farmers and agricultural workers in Western, Southern and Northern India has received some attention in the media and central legislature, the plight of those in the Eastern region of the country (Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Orissa, Chhattisgarh and Eastern UP) has remained on the margins. To be addressed by P Sainath, founder of People’s Archive of Rural India (PARI), a statement issued ahead of the rally says, the Eastern India was the most prosperous regi...

'Centre criminally negligent': SKM demands national disaster declaration in flood-hit states

By A Representative The Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) has urged the Centre to immediately declare the recent floods and landslides in Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Uttarakhand, and Haryana as a national disaster, warning that the delay in doing so has deepened the suffering of the affected population.

Counterview

Search This Blog