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Former Bihar chief minister Manjhi exhorts voters to avenge ‘injustice’- By Lata Rani, CorrespondentPublished: 18:03 March 16, 2015Gulf News *********************************************************** Ex-chief minister says he was shown the door for championing cause of the poor. Patna: Former Bihar chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi on Monday launched a blistering attack on his successor Nitish Kumar for wresting power from him and exhorted voters to avenge this “injustice” through ballots in the upcoming state polls. He said he was shown the door for working for the poor and Dalits. “He [Nitish Kumar] humiliated me since I worked for you but don’t go violent. Just store your anger in your heats and avenge this ‘injustice’ through ballots in the coming state assembly polls,” declared Manjhi addressing a rally in a north Bihar town of Muzaffarpur on Monday. The rally was organised under the aegis of his newly-formed front Hindustani Avam Morcha.

BAREILLY: An RTI activist who sought information on the freedom struggle in India from 1857 onwards received a letter from the National Archives, telling him the details could not be provided since the records needed were in Urdu and the papers were in poor shape! The RTI activist said the answer was surprising, and raised questions about the ability of the National Archives to preserve records of freedom fighters. Read more at: Records in Urdu paper in poor shape, so unable to respond to RTI query: National Archives - The Times of India

GURGAON: State information commissioner Urvashi Gulati has directed private hospitals to follow provisions of the right to information (RTI) act and share details of poor patients treated by them. Read at: Private hospitals asked to share info on poor patients - The Times of India

what happened of paramedical due course result. show the complete merit list of 2nd result with marks obtained.

I received my first new passport on 9 August 2012. I received my passport on time but when I opened I was shocked to see that printing quality of the first page is very bad and the lamination was damaged and this is the the case with new passport. Many alphabets are blurred on the first page. There is ink around most of the alphabets and are not properly readable. So I filed a complain on-line. But I never received any reply. So I decided to visit RPO, Delhi. On 11 September,2012 I visited RPO, Delhi. I told my case to an official in passport office and he found my complain genuine and told me you should be issued new passport(duplicate one) and guided me to visit Room No: 29. But when I met an official in Room No: 29, he told me that they will re-laminate the passport but they will not give you new passport or reprint the passport. Then he told me to visit Room No: 18 for lamination. I reached to Room No: 18, I told my problem again and he told me that he will only re-laminate but can not do anything with printing. Even the official in Room No: 18 advised me if I insist for reprinting of passport then maybe I will receive a more worsen printed passport. He fixed the lamination but printing is still bad. So a citizen of India should expect a poor quality service like this from Passport Office of India Then I have to leave the passport office as I was not getting any help regarding the printing quality. This is going to create problem for me in getting visa and clear immigration. I can be detained at any airport by immigration officials as my passport does not look original. It looks like somebody has printed it at home. I want to know who is responsible for sending a damaged/bad quality passport to me. Does passport office do any quality check before dispatching it? Even when I visited passport office they behave rudely and does not listen to real problem. I have to miss my college class for a whole day when I visit passport office each time and passport officials does not listen and does not listen to problem. I am not getting a passport for free, I have paid for it (INR 1000 plus other cost like traveling,time), so I should expect a proper passport not a damaged one. Its totally harassment by passport office. I am thinking to file RTI to solve this issue. Please guide me what are the steps in detail to apply through post as I can not visit passport office again and again because my college is in different city and also my family does allow to me to travel to Delhi alone.

hi my name is deepak sharma i have applied for the post of constable gd and i got selected but till now i haven't got my call letter, neither ssb persons responding my queries.

Hello I would like to know which Government body keeps an eye on the schools, and what are the basic requirements for a private school to get permission to run. And where can a parent register complaints about schools and a teacher. Thank you

I am a citizen of visakhapatnam. There a few problems concerning my colony for which i require help to approach the concerned officials. 1) Our colony doesnt have proper road. Now even the main arterial road to our colony has gone from bad to worse. How to frame RTI query for this? 2) We have got a temporary drainage system, one which is not built with concrete or pipes and isnt covered at all. How will RTI will help me in this regard? 3) There no sweepers/ sanitation officials visiting our colony ? I myself tried to contact the locate the offical/ supervisior of our locality but wasnt unable to get hold of any. How to get the details pertaining to same? Please let me know how will RTI help me to solve these problems and what the further steps that will be required once i get reply for above mentioned RTI queries. Thanks in advance

hi, I want to know all schemes that govt. is providing for development of poor and hungry areas of country. What are schemes for physically disabled persons

As reported by Neelam Pandey at hindustantimes.com on February 14, 2011 MCD’s education department has received several complaints alleging that a number of schools are not admitting students from the economically weaker sections (EWS), saying the seats are full. There are 757 schools recognised by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) -— a number of which are violating the RTI guidelines, which makes it mandatory for schools to reserve 25% of its seats for children belonging to the EWS. The civic agency has now asked its education department to inspect these schools, and initiate action, including derecognition, against those found guilty. “Several parents met me personally complaining that a number of schools have not been giving admission to their children. Some of these are posh schools in south Delhi that have got land from the DDA at cheap prices but are not fulfilling the RTI guidelines. We will be taking strict action against them,” said Mahender Nagpal, chairman of MCD's education committee. “We have already sent two notices to schools asking them to give us details of the students that they have admitted under the EWS category. A survey will be carried out after February 15, which is the last date for admitting students from EWS. We will prosecute the authorities found guilty,” Nagpal said.

Hellow sir,i am satish rathore.i am student of engg.sir my father is poor,they cannot afford my fees.so i was gone to sbi for education loan.but manager of bank say that my father does not pay incomtex so they can not give me loan.please tell me sir what i do now?sir i have not 1st division in 12 exam.please give me suggesion

As reported by M K Ashoka at bangaloremirror.com on January 17,2010 Majority of the faculty members of IIPSM, VTU’s extension centre, teach MBA students despite not holding an MBA degree; VTU sought academic details in Aug 2009, but the institute has yet to submit the same An MBA institute whose faculty members do not have an MBA degree. This is the plight of International Institute of Productivity Science & Management (IIPSM), an extension centre of Visvesvaraya Technological University, Padmanabhanagar. As many as 120 students have enrolled for the MBA programme at IIPSM. On complaints that a majority of the faculty do not have an MBA degree, the VTU sent a committee to the IIPSM in August last, whose report confirmed its worst fears. Later, the varsity asked the institute to submit the academic credentials of all its faculty members. It is still waiting for the latter’s response. NOT FIT TO TEACH The report, a copy of which is in the possession of Bangalore Mirror, says, “Although a list of 23 faculty members was submitted (to the committee), only 7-8 are found to have been teaching. Further, the faculty profile reveals a vast majority of them do not have an MBA degree which makes them ineligible to teach.” The committee has found a “lack of seriousness and commitment on the part of the extension centre to carry out an academic programme”. It has listed out eight points clearly mentioning that the course is not found to be running satisfactorily. “The infrastructure is very poor and not befitting an extension centre of the university. The premises where the centre is being run is a residential building and most unfit for running an extention centre,” the committee report has said. ANSWERS SOUGHT On receiving the report, VTU registrar Prof K V A Balaji issued a notice to IIPSM director M R Ramsay seeking explanation on these shortcomings within seven days. The university also sought to know why the extension centre should be allowed to continue. Interestingly, the registrar had replied to an RTI query on Jan 4, 2010 that the VTU had asked the IIPSM to submit the academic credentials of all the faculty members. When asked about it, he said, “A committee recently visited the IIPSM. It is in the process of preparing the report. As soon as the report is ready, it will be submitted to the university and action taken accordingly.” MIGHT SHUT CENTRE Stating that the other extension centres of VTU are doing “extremely well”, he admitted that the problems are only with the IIPSM. “We are concerned about the reputation and credibility of VTU. We will close the institute if the committee comes out with a report that requirements have not been met,” said Prof Balaji. Asked how the VTU would deal with extension centres, Prof Balaji said, “In future, while according permission to extension centres, we will thoroughly check the credentials of persons who are going to start it.” After Kincha took over as vice-chancellor of VTU, not a single extension centre has been granted, he said. When contacted, Ramsay said, “It is a university matter and the media has no right to investigate.” Later, he said there are no flaws in the IIPSM. Source: They teach MBA sans MBA!, News - City - Bangalore Mirror,Bangalore Mirror

For two decades the people of Sunder Nagri, on the north-east edge of the Indian capital, Delhi, had to make do without sewers. As the alleyways and backyards of their slum festered, local officials kept making and breaking promises to clean things up. Then, local businessman Noshe Ali decided to take matters into his own hands. Using a new law that forces the authorities to disclose information, he discovered what everyone in Sunder Nagri had already guessed - that there were no plans to dig any sewers. Armed with this knowledge, he persuaded the Indian capital's chief minister to authorise a budget, and work started within a year. "This place used to be really dirty. There were lots of mosquitoes and many people caught disease. Now things are quite different," Noshe Ali said. Desire for change The government brought in the Right to Information (RTI) law last year to open the opaque world of the civil service up to public scrutiny. It is a revolutionary act... It changes the power balance in favour of the people Former civil servant Arvind Kejriwal "Within government there is a desire to bring about change, to bring about greater transparency," says Wajahat Haibullah, the head of the Central Information Commission, which oversees implementation of the law. For a fee of 10 rupees, Indians can now ask the government for information on almost anything. It has been enthusiastically welcomed by members of some of India's poorest communities who complain that for years they have been ignored by lazy, inefficient and corrupt bureaucrats. In Sunder Nagri, most families scrape a living from the textiles industry. Usha, the resident of a Delhi slum Though Usha did not get information, she got the certificates Men work heavy wooden handlooms squeezed into dusty rooms, and the women sit on the pavements outside, spinning cotton on old bicycle wheels. It is not just work on large infrastructure projects like sewer lines that they want to speed up. They are often made to wait for simple things like passports, driving licenses, electricity and water connections - or pay a bribe. Usha, for example, was asked to hand over 800 rupees ($20) for birth certificates for her two daughters. "They were asking for money from me, but we hardly have enough to even feed ourselves," Usha said. Revolutionary act Instead of paying bribes, she used the RTI to find out what was delaying her application, and which official was responsible. Rather than disclose that information, she was called into the local government office and given the birth certificates. "It is a revolutionary act," says Arvind Kejriwal, a former civil servant, who founded a grass-roots movement, Parivartan (Change), to champion the right to information. "It changes the power balance in favour of the people." A woman weaver in a Delhi slum Delhi's poor weavers have held bureaucracy to account Another resident of Sunder Nagri, Radha, alleges that she waited two years for a ration card, which entitles her to subsidised food. During that time she says someone else was using it illegally. "After I filed an RTI application the ration card arrived within days," she said. Mr Kejriwal and a network of media organisations and NGOs are now trying to spread awareness of the law from India's cities to its rural areas where a large proportion of government development funds is either wasted or stolen. New addiction "We are going around the country telling people they no longer have to pay bribes in India," Arvind Kejriwal says. He warns, though, that some within government want to reduce the powers of the act. In August the cabinet considered an amendment which would prevent disclosure of some comments scribbled on the side of files, but shelved the plan after nationwide protests. Even without the amendments, activists admit it will take a long time to genuinely open up the civil service. But a growing number of Indians are beginning to enjoy their new powers. "When someone learns to use RTI, he almost becomes addicted to it," Arvind Kejriwal says. "It is so powerful, it empowers the very ordinary citizen in a tremendous way." BBC NEWS | South Asia | Information law lifts Indian poor