Despite RTI, governance remains officer-centric rather than citizen-centric, says Moily

THE government has acknowledged that a large number of Indian populace including those in urban India are not aware of Right To Information (RTI), and the governance is still remaining officer-centric rather than citizen centric, as policy makers have gathered in New Delhi to deliberate on prospects of RTI in a two-day conference.
While inaugurating the convention, Union minister of law and justice Veerappa Moily said there is a need to put in place a mechanism by preventing the abuse of RTI Act. He was referring to the instances of attacks on RTI activists including the murder of Amit Jethwa, an environmentalist in Gujarat, and Satish Shetty, an activist in Maharashtra.

The Minister further said that the whistleblowers and RTI activists are instrumental in furthering the cause of transparency and they need adequate protection. He asserted that the Whistleblower Bill (The Public Interest Disclosure and Protection to Persons making the Disclosure Bill) would be taken up the Parliament during the winter session.

1977 batch IAS Subhash Kumar appointed Uttarakhand chief secretary

Subhash Kumar, a 1977 batch IAS has been appointed as the new chief secretary of Uttarakhand. Kumar, who was the additional chief secretary in the state, has been given the charge replacing NS Napalchyal. A post graduate in political science and a certificate holder of Tibetan studies, Kumar has never been in Central deputation.

Meanwhile, Kumar’s batch-mate and a cabinet secretary hopeful Ajay Joshi, who was recently transferred to Nainital as the Director General of the Administrative Training Institute (ATI), has challenged his transfer order in CAT.

Workshop on designing Sevottam compliant citizen’s charters begins

The second workshop on designing and implementing Sevottam Compliant Citizen’s Charters and Grievances Redress Mechanism has begun in New Delhi on Tuesday. The two-day workshop was inaugurated by the cabinet secretary KM.Chandrasekar. Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances in collaboration with Performance Management Division of cabinet secretariat with consultancy support from FICCI Quality Forum is organizing these workshops for 62 ministries or departments to facilitate them in achieving the Sevottam compliance success indicators under RFD.