Put draft rules of RTI amendment Act in public domain for discussion: PM told

By A Representative
A civil rights network, the National Campaign for Peoples’ Right to Information (NCPRI), in a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has sought his immediate intervention on the Centre’s "failure" to prescribe rules regarding the salary, tenure and terms of service of information commissioners, after the enactment of the Right to Information Amendment Act, 2019.
It regrets, while the draft rules have been prepared by the Government of India's Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), "these are not available in the public domain."
These rules should be "in accordance with the procedures laid down in the Pre-Legislative Consultation Policy of 2014, which requires all draft rules to be placed in the public domain for comments/suggestions of people", the letter -- signed among others by senior RTI activists Anjali Bhardwaj, Nikhil Dey, Venkatesh Nayak, Pankti Jog, Pradip Pradhan, Rakesh Dubbudu and Dr Shaikh Ghulam Rasool -- urges.
The letter recalls that the amendments to the RTI law were made "despite public protests across the country", pointing out, "There were no public consultations on the amendments and the bill was not referred to any parliamentary deliberative committee." As a result, it adds, "The RTI amendment Act seriously weakened the law by undermining the autonomy of information commissions."
It complains, "It has been nearly three months since the amendments received the President’s assent. However, till date, the central government has not prescribed requisite rules. As a result, vacancies in information commissions persist, leading to huge backlogs and concomitant long delays in the disposal of appeals and complaints of people. This is hindering the effective functioning of the RTI Act."

The farmer's burden: How oil, war, and climate are rewriting the price of food

By Vikas Meshram The scorching flames of the Middle East conflict are now slowly reaching the kitchens of ordinary people. The true price of this war is paid in daily markets, vegetable shops, and in the shattered minds of farmers. Expensive crude oil, skyrocketing fertilizer prices, and rising agricultural costs are together creating the conditions for global food inflation — and this crisis is directly tied to what people eat and drink every day.

India's nuclear euphoria: The hard economics policymakers ignore

By Shankar Sharma* There is a sort of newfound euphoria sweeping India with respect to nuclear power — and in particular, Small Modular Reactors (SMRs). In political speeches, policy documents, and newspaper editorials, the word "nuclear" has acquired a fresh, almost romantic glow, as though a technology once synonymous with catastrophe at Chernobyl and Fukushima has been quietly reinvented. To be sure, the challenges of climate change and India's growing electricity demand are real and urgent. But enthusiasm is not a substitute for analysis. A hard look at the global evidence, the domestic cost picture, and the practical hurdles of nuclear deployment raises questions that this national conversation urgently needs to confront.

Beyond the 'silent relocation' narrative in Bangladesh's Chittagong Hill Tracts

By Dr. Mohammad Asaduzzaman* In recent years, a narrative has emerged from the rugged and forested terrain of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), portraying the region as the site of a “silent relocation” — a mass forced migration of Bangladesh’s non-Muslim ethnic communities into neighboring India and Myanmar.

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