Public consultation? Govt of India 'didn't consult' even CIC before amending RTI Act

Information accessed under the Right to Information (RTI) Act shows that the Central Information Commission (CIC) was not consulted before amending the RTI Act in July this year or subsequently when the rules made to implement it. Revealing this, senior RTI activist Anjali Bharadwaj has said, "CIC has confirmed, in response to an RTI application, that the government did not seek its comments."
The RTI Act's sections 13, 16 and 27 which were amended this July, empower the Central government to prescribe rules to decide tenure, salaries, allowances and other terms of service of the chief and other information commissioners of CIC and all state information commissions (SICs).
The government brought in amendments to the RTI Act, despite protests across the country and opposition from several political parties. There were no public consultations on the amendments and the bill was not referred to a Parliamentary deliberative committee for detailed discussions.
Pointing out that the rules were also "not put through any process of public consultation", Bharadwaj said, "The surreptitious manner in which the amendments were brought, and the rules promulgated, constitutes a violation of the Pre-Legislative Consultation Policy of 2014 which requires all draft rules to be placed in the public domain for comments/suggestions of people."
Further, she said, "Section 4(1)(c) of the RTI Act puts an obligation on the government to publish all relevant facts while formulating important policies or announcing the decisions which affect the public".
During the debate in Rajya Sabha on the Amendment Bill, the concerned minister, Dr Jitendra Singh, responding to why there were no public consultations, had said, when the Act was being formulated in mid-2000s, these took place because the government was dealing with the "RTI's gamut, its spectrum".
However, during the recent amendment, he asserted. the government was dealing with "certain functionaries" and the question of salary etc. "between the government and the officers, not the public."

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When Pakistanis whispered: ‘end military rule’ — A Moscow memoir

During the recent anti-terror operation inside Pakistan by the Government of India, called Operation Sindoor — a name some feminists consider patently patriarchal, even though it’s officially described as a tribute to the wives of the 26 husbands killed in the terrorist strike — I was reminded of my Moscow stint, which lasted for seven long years, from 1986 to 1993.

Ahmedabad's civic chaos: Drainage woes, waterlogging, and the illusion of Olympic dreams

In response to my blog on overflowing gutter lines at several spots in Ahmedabad's Vejalpur, a heavily populated area, a close acquaintance informed me that it's not just the middle-class housing societies that are affected by the nuisance. Preeti Das, who lives in a posh locality in what is fashionably called the SoBo area, tells me, "Things are worse in our society, Applewood."

Tracking a lost link: Soviet-era legacy of Gujarati translator Atul Sawani

The other day, I received a message from a well-known activist, Raju Dipti, who runs an NGO called Jeevan Teerth in Koba village, near Gujarat’s capital, Gandhinagar. He was seeking the contact information of Atul Sawani, a translator of Russian books—mainly political and economic—into Gujarati for Progress Publishers during the Soviet era. He wanted to collect and hand over scanned soft copies, or if possible, hard copies, of Soviet books translated into Gujarati to Arvind Gupta, who currently lives in Pune and is undertaking the herculean task of collecting and making public soft copies of Soviet books that are no longer available in the market, both in English and Indian languages.

RP Gupta a scapegoat to help Govt of India manage fallout of Adani case in US court?

RP Gupta, a retired 1987-batch IAS officer from the Gujarat cadre, has found himself at the center of a growing controversy. During my tenure as the Times of India correspondent in Gandhinagar (1997–2012), I often interacted with him. He struck me as a straightforward officer, though I never quite understood why he was never appointed to what are supposed to be top-tier departments like industries, energy and petrochemicals, finance, or revenue.

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A new report by Toxics Link , an Indian environmental research and advocacy organisation based in New Delhi, in collaboration with the Environmental Defense Fund , a global non-profit headquartered in New York, has raised the alarm that Sabarmati is one of five rivers across India found to contain unacceptable levels of nonylphenol (NP), a chemical linked to "exposure to carcinogenic outcomes, including prostate cancer in men and breast cancer in women."

PharmEasy: The only online medical store which revises prices upwards after confirming the order

For senior citizens — especially those without a family support system — ordering medicines online can be a great relief. Shruti and I have been doing this for the last couple of years, and with considerable success. We upload a prescription, receive a verification call from a doctor, and within two or three days, the medicines are delivered to our doorstep.

A conman, a demolition man: How 'prominent' scribes are defending Pritish Nandy

How to defend Pritish Nandy? That’s the big question some of his so-called fans seem to ponder, especially amidst sharp criticism of his alleged insensitivity during his journalistic career. One such incident involved the theft and publication of the birth certificate of Masaba Gupta, daughter of actor Neena Gupta, in the Illustrated Weekly of India, which Nandy was editing at the time. He reportedly did this to uncover the identity of Masaba’s father.

Revisiting Gijubhai: Pioneer of child-centric education and the caste debate

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A sector under siege? War and real estate: Navigating uncertainty in India's expanding market

I was a little surprised when I received an email alert from a top real estate consultant, Anarock Group , titled "Exploring War’s Effects on Indian Real Estate—When Conflict Meets Concrete," authored by its regional director and head of research, Dr. Prashant Thakur. I had thought that the business would wholeheartedly support what is considered a strong response to the dastardly terrorist attack in Pahalgam, Operation Sindoor.

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