समाचार

It refers to reports about Madhya Pradesh government raising RTI fees from present rupees 10 to rupees 100 with additional raised fees for filing First Appeals and Second Appeals at rupees 500 and 1000. But RTI fees cannot be more than rupees 50 according to court-verdict. Rather Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) should notify that RTI fees and payment-mode should be uniform for all states and Competent Authorities. Earlier several Competent Authorities and states had fixed abnormally high RTI fees at rupees 500 according to power given to them under sections 27 and 28 of RTI Act. But negligible RTI fees of just rupees 10 fixed long back in the year 2005 by DoPT has lost relevance being one of the reasons for misuse of RTI Act. Uniform RTI fees of rupees 50 inclusive of cop...

Timings of news-bulleting and other programmes presented by News Services Division of All India Radio (Akashwani) were last revised more than five decades ago when Television-network had insignificant presence. Then timings were revised in a manner that Hindi bulletins may be broadcast just before English news-bulletins like shifting main Hindi bulletin from then 8.15 pm to now 8.45 pm. But such placement deprived Samayaki important time-place just after main Hindi bulletin like is there for Spotlight relayed at 9.15 pm just after main English bulletin. All India Radio should go for a total new time-schedule for all its news-bulletins and other programmes presented by News Services Division. Main evening Hindi news-bulletin should be advanced to 8 pm followed by Samayaki at 8.15 pm just...

The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to examine a proposition made by the Election Commission (EC) to ask political parties to not give ticket to those with criminal antecedents. Appearing before a Bench led by Justice Rohinton F. Nariman, senior advocate Vikas Singh said 46% of Members of Parliament have criminal records. The Supreme Court’s long string of judgments against criminalisation of politics had hardly scratched the surface of the deep rot. The Bench, also comprising Justice Ravindra S. Bhat, asked Mr. Singh and petitioner Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay’s lawyer, senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, to put their heads together and come up with a joint proposal detailing how it can be ensured that parties did not fall in with criminal politicians. Justice Nariman, speaking f...

Courts especially Supreme Court are giving very lengthy judgements at times running into hundreds or thousands of pages like Supreme Court verdict of 09.11.2019 on Ram Jambhoomi, which are practically not read by common persons including even litigants themselves and are even beyond understanding of commoners. Such lengthy court-verdicts are show-pieces for libraries and are read only by researchers and select lawyers. Need is that commoners including litigants may find short and precise court-verdicts so that they may not have to depend on lawyers to know salient features of the lengthy court-verdicts. Such an improved system will prevent media and commentators to twist court-findings according to their needs. Things can improve a lot if India also adopts practice of countries where th...

It refers to shocking media reports about 25000 rotis (bread) daily wasted in Tihar jail of Delhi because prisoners usually do not take their full diet out of mental tension. Report reveals that situation is more prevalent in under-trial prisoners which form majority of jail-inmates, while those having been convicted and sentenced take better diet. System should be modified whereby food may be cooked for prisoners on daily average-basis rather than prescribed diet-norms to avoid such large-scale wastage of food including rotis (bread). It does not take much time to prepare more rotis (bread) in case quantity is somehow felt short after cooked food is exhausted. Further steps can be taken to utilize surplus rotis (bread) for production of biscuits in jail-workshop by installing machine t...