Madhya Pradesh leads in forest cover area: MoEF

May 31st, 2012 12:36 PM | by editor | News.  
Madhya Pradesh leads in forest cover area: MoEF
According to the latest India State of Forest Report 2011, 77,700 kms (11.24 percent) of the total 6,90,899 kms of forest land in the country is in Madhya Pradesh, Ministry of Environment and Forest has said, in reply to an RTI query by Omprakash Sharma, a former BJP national council ...

Indians have no right to info in J&K

May 28th, 2012 05:02 PM | by editor | News.  
Indians have no right to info in J&K
Even as successive governments in Jammu and Kashmir have liberally extended security laws like TADA, POTA or Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) to the state, they block implementation of central laws like Right to Education (RTE), granting constitutional status to panchayats etc, citing special status granted under the Article ...

Acid victims fear backlash over Saving Face

May 24th, 2012 12:17 PM | by editor | News.  
Acid victims fear backlash over Saving Face
  Survivors of acid attacks whose plight became the focus of an Oscar-winning documentary now fear ostracism and reprisals if the film is broadcast in Pakistan. Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy made history earlier this year when she won Pakistan’s first Oscar, feted across the country for exposing the horrors endured by women whose faces ...

High Court grants interim stay to JK Bank

May 23rd, 2012 01:21 PM | by editor | News.  
High Court grants interim stay to JK Bank
In a major relief to J&K Bank, the High Court on Tuesday stayed the order of State Information Commission which had declared the bank as “public authority” under J&K Right to Information Act. A bench of Justice J P Singh passed the order on a petition filed by J&K Bank Limitedchallenging ...

Parliament gives nod to strengthened copyright law

May 23rd, 2012 01:11 PM | by editor | News.  
Parliament gives nod to strengthened copyright law
Empowering the creative sector, parliament on Tuesday enacted a law that strengthens the royalty claims of artistes, song and script writers, musicians and those in similar fields and addresses newer issues related to the digital world and internet. The Copyright Act (Amendment) Bill, 2012, was passed by the Lok Sabha with ...

Team Anna protests for stronger whistleblowers law

May 22nd, 2012 12:34 PM | by editor | News.  
Team Anna protests for stronger whistleblowers law
Kejriwal, along with other Team Anna members, including former Union minister Shanti Bhushan, led over a 100 protesters to seek justice for RTI activist Ravinder Balwani, who suffered fatal injuries in a "hit-and-run" incident in the capital last month. "Time and again we hear cases of RTI activists being attacked. It ...

Govt jobs no solution to unemployment: Omar

May 22nd, 2012 11:35 AM | by editor | News.  
Govt jobs no solution to unemployment: Omar
Chief Minister Omar Abdullah Monday said the issue of unemployment in cannot be solved by providing government jobs to the unemployed youth. Speaking at a public gathering in Nagam area of Central Kashmir’s Budgam district, Omar made it clear that his Government cannot provide jobs to all educated unemployed youth. “There is no ...

Manohar Parrikar’s swearing-in cost Rs 11 lakh

May 21st, 2012 07:31 PM | by editor | News.  
Manohar Parrikar’s swearing-in cost Rs 11 lakh
The much publicised swearing-in ceremony of Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar on March 9 cost the state exchequer a whopping Rs 11 lakh for a one-hour function, an RTI query has revealed. "The pandal, stage, sound system and seating arrangement for the swearing-in ceremony cost the tax payer Rs 7.98 lakh, ...

Information commissions in India male-dominated: study

May 19th, 2012 05:36 PM | by editor | News.  
Information commissions in India male-dominated: study
The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) has released a study that takes stock of the functioning of the information commissions in India, which it said are male-dominated and far away from meeting their full potential. The study, A Rapid Study of Information Commissions - Established Under the Right to Information Laws ...

Indians have no right to info in J&K

May 8th, 2012 01:52 PM | by editor | News.  
Indians have no right to info in J&K
Even as successive governments in Jammu and Kashmir have liberally extended security laws like TADA, POTA or Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) to the state, they block implementation of central laws like Right to Education (RTE), granting constitutional status to panchayats etc, citing special status granted under the Article ...

JK has no Fire Safety Act

May 7th, 2012 02:43 PM | by editor | News.  
JK has no Fire Safety Act
Not learning a lesson or two from fire tragedies taking place across the world, the Jammu and Kashmir government has failed to enact Fire Force Act – the law that makes it mandatory to install fire safety gadgets in the public and private establishments. If official sources are to be believed ...

Only 1 army man prosecuted in 22 yrs in JK

May 5th, 2012 01:00 PM | by editor | News.  
Only 1 army man prosecuted in 22 yrs in JK
In what can be seen as the fallout of controversial Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), only one army man has been prosecuted in Jammu and Kashmir during past 22 years by Ministry of Defence (MoD), which received 44 cases for sanction for prosecution from 1990 to 2011. The MoD, however, ...

JK Karwani Islami alleges fraud in Madrasa funding

May 4th, 2012 04:43 PM | by editor | News.  
JK Karwani Islami alleges fraud in Madrasa funding
Spilling the beans over the funding of Madrasas in the State, Jammu and Kashmir Karwani-Islami has accused the School Education Department of drawing money in the name of non-existing religious schools and seminaries. Addressing a press conference, Chairman Karwani-Islami Ghulam Rasool Hami said the organization’s legal advisor Mudasir Naqashbandi had ...

FATAL IMFORMATION

May 2nd, 2012 08:54 PM | by editor | News.  
FATAL IMFORMATION
The Right to Information Act seems to be the most fatal law in the country. Though courts have not been convinced, the deaths of RTI activists across the country point at those who stood to lose from the truth. Add to the deaths the numerous threats received by activists and ...