- Nexus between officers of BMC and professional complainants:
The alleged “criminal conduit” between executive engineer Ajit Karnik and local RTI activist Mukesh Kanakia was exposed by Municipal Commissioner, R.A. Rajeev after Ajit Karnik reportedly asked a Naupada-based doctor to pay Rs. 2.75 lakh to Kanakia to get him to withdraw his complaint about a nursing home being set up in a residential flat.
“It is a case of collusion. As an executive engineer, Karnik is tasked with the key role of scrutinising building plans, verifying legal papers and recommending sanctions for construction projects. He chose to act as a go-between for Kanakia and the doctor for which he would get his share of money,” Rajeev said.
The episode, however, has opened a Pandora’s Box of the goings-on in the town planning department which has been accused of being the hotbed of corruption in the Thane corporation. Mr. Rajeev suspended Mr. Karnik.
- Information: Now More Powerful Than Money?
The Right To Information can help people get an answer from an unresponsive bureaucracy, but what if it could do more than that? Could it clean up the system? A study by two Yale political scientists show that this might just be true.
Leonid V. Peisakhin and Paul Pinto, two PhD candidates at Yale University’s department of political science, conducted a field experiment in a Delhi slum among residents who were trying to apply for a ration card. Peisakhin and Pinto found that putting in an application for ration card and then filing an RTI request checking on its status, was almost as effective as paying a bribe. Most significantly, when poor people filed an RTI request, it erased the class disadvantage they otherwise faced, and their applications were cleared as fast as those of middle class.
The Government has spent Rs. 43.31 lakh on the Myanmar delegation that traveled to Delhi, Gurgaon and Mumbai.
The Speaker of the lower house of the Myanmar Parliament, Thura Shwe, was gifted a wooden elephant and all others with him took back dancing peacock statuettes worth Rs. 7,550; the total spend on the gifts to them was Rs. 1.11 lakh.
Similarly, Rs. 36.36 Lakh was spent during a goodwill visit of a German Delegation that journeyed to Delhi, Amritsar, Jodhpur and Mumbai. When a delegation from Cuba visited Delhi and Agra, the government spent Rs. 4.61 lakh on hosting them. “These were the years when the government had declared its austerity drive. But the RTI response reveals that millions of rupees were spent on putting up foreign dignitaries. All of them were flown to various parts of India and put up in five-star hotels,” said Agrawal. “One fails to understand why those who accompaning dignitaries cannot be put up in government guesthouses.”
- Foreign trip of Sonia Gandhi:
- The government spent Rs. 15.5 lakh on UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi’s visit abroad between 2006 and 2011, according to data accessed through RTI.
In addition, Rs. 64.76 lakh was spent by Indian missions across the world on the SPG which travelled with Sonia.
Sonia is Z-plus security protectee with a high level of threat perception.
- According to replies given by Indian mission to Hisar based RTI applicant Ramesh Verma, Sonia travelled to South Africa, China, Germany and Belgium, expenses for which were paid for by the government.
