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."

Arrival of USS Lincoln: A ‘leisure trip’ to Thailand or a neo-colonial move to commodify women?

By Benyasiri Eimviriyapong The arrival of the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) for a ‘leisure trip’ in Thailand before returning to its campaign of destruction against the people of West Asia demands immediate interrogation and opposition. For us Thai people, and those in sites of American plunder across the globe, this a rattling of the US’ cold war colonial chains on its most loyal lap dog, while conducting a war of aggression in Iran and the ongoing genocide in Palestine. In allowing the USS Lincoln to dock, the Thai ruling elites are once again facilitating a system of imperial violence that extends far beyond Southeast Asian borders, a system which in our case, is predicated on sexual violence and femicide.

PIL seeks suspension of school-based HPV vaccination over consent violations

By A Representative The Universal Health Organisation (UHO) has filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) before the Supreme Court of India seeking judicial intervention to ensure that the country's nationwide Human Papillomavirus (HPV) Vaccination Programme complies with constitutional guarantees of informed consent , bodily autonomy, transparency, and accountability.

Pilgrimage or pollution? The waste crisis of Indian faith

By Raj Kumar Sinha* In today's times, there are certain issues that are constantly talked about and discussed, yet no visible impact seems to be made. Beyond water, soil, and pollution, one crisis that continues to be overlooked is waste. Like other life-threatening problems, waste too is gradually moving toward burying and obliterating us. After the Kanwar Yatra in Haridwar, approximately 8,000 tonnes of waste were left behind on the riverbanks, including bottles filled with urine.

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