Online RTI

the week that was

September 15-21 2009
Page 4 the week that was
AlterEgo By Mehnaz
September 15-21 2009 VOL 1 ISSUE 5 A weekly production by Journalism students of CMS

to empower
masses insidestory India initiates revival
In a significant step to increase the reach
and accessibility of the Right to
For the sake of Mongolia signs civil
nuclear pact with of Doha round talks
India

Information (RTI) for the public, the filing
and complaining procedure has been
made simpler.
Complains and second appeal on RTI
can now be filed online with all documents
to be attachments in digital form.
The Chief Information Commissioner,
Wajahat Habibullah also suggested the
use of credit cards for submitting the
required fees.
After inaugurating the Central
I n fo r m a t i o n C o m m i s s i o n p o r t a l
(www.rti.india.gov.in) for filing complaints
and second appeals online, Wajahat
H a b i b u l l a h s a i d , “ Wi t h i n te r n e t
penetration improving, we have to look at
new ways for filing RTI applications
including payment through credit cards.”
The new system will co-exist with the
existing system, i.e. the manual one where
the applicants send their complaints and
appeal via post.
Another highlight of the new website,
which has been developed by the National
Informatics Centre, is that it empowers
the visually challenged to file the
applications. This feat has been achieved
by designing the website in such a way
that the visually challenged can hear the
instructions and details on the portal
through speakers on their computers and
‘honour’
Every year 5000 females are killed in so-called
‘honour killing’
Man as a social animal has to
abide by the so-called laws of a
society. And when one tries to go
against this code of life, one has to
pay for it. Honour killing is one
such norm of some communities
where one has to pay one's life for
violating the rules of the
community. In India and other
co u nt r i es , fe m a l es a re
considered to be the honour of
the family. When such women go
against the fami ly wishes
especially when they marry or
elope with their partners
belonging to a different caste or
community; the members of the
family ' kill' them for the sake of
defending their honour.
In India alone, hundreds of
women if not thousands are killed
in the name of honour. Thirteen
females per day are killed for the
sake of honour worldwide,
according to a UN report.
However, the reports of the
killings go off the record and the
culprits or the perpetrators are
left unpunished.
Honour killings are not always
leave the village as Ravinder had
married a girl called Shilpa
belonging to the same gotra.
Same gotra means sibling like
relationship therefore according
to the khap, the marriage in the
same category is equivalent to
incest. This is one such instance in
Haryana where family was asked
to vacate the village. However, in
some cases like Ved Pal Maul's
case, on July 22, the man was
murdered brutall y by t he
members of the panchayat at
Singhwal, in Jind district when he
came to take his wife back whom
he had married against the
consent of the girl's parents. In
this case, there was no issue of
different caste or same gotra, it
was just that they opted for 'love
marriage'.
There are innumerable cases
like Ved Pal's or Ravinder
Gehlout's. If, in 2007, the murder
of Manoj and Babli shocked the
region, in 2004, a pregnant
woman, Sonia, and her husband,
Rampal, of Asanda village in
Jhajjar grabbed the attention of
paternal house as she knows her
confession about her marriage
will only lead her into the worst.
These caste panchayats are
illegal in nature but still people in
villages continue to obey their
rulings. According to P
Chidambaram, Union Home
Minister, “Caste panchayats are
informal bodies and have no legal
status as such. Often, villagers
give precedence to the
judgement of a caste panchayat
rather than that delivered by the
courts of law.”
Honour killing is not limited to
Haryana only, it is prevalent in
western UP and Punjab as well. In
the name of tradition, the caste
panchayats reward murder of a
married couple or declare the
man and woman as brother and
sister or even sit on an indefinite
protest to throw out a family from
a village. These acts are done in
Rupee
front of everyone's eye but
nobody is taking that needed climbs on
extra step to stop such a crime.
As honour killings do not come
under the National Crime Bureau,
stock
New Delhi on September 14 agriculture and Non-Agriculture Ministers of almost 35 countries
Page 2 hosted Ministerial Meeting of Marketing Access (NAMA), on also agreed to review the
WTO nations as a 'breakthrough' which consensus had been progress of the talks after three
Chinese cuisine in Doha round of talks which had reached in December 2008 months and do all that is possible
Page 2
ended in a deadlock in
J u l y l a s t y e a r.
to wrap up things by
2010. Much has been
Tra d e / C o m m e r c e
Fact file invested in the
President visits ministers of the key World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations of Doha
member nations of Set up- 1 January 1995 Round and it was time
Russia and WTO announced the Deals with the rules of trade between
to take things further."
Tajikistan resumption of talks on nations at a global level T h e W T O
Page 2 the Doha round. Doha Development Round or Doha n e g o t i at i o n s w e re
After concluding Development Agenda (DDA) facing this deadlock
t h e m e e t i n g , Started in November 2001 since December 2008.
Economy business Commerce and Industry It is the current trade-negotiation round of After the failure of the
Page 3 M i n i s t e r a n d t h e WTO talks in July last year in
c h a i r m a n o f t h e Objective - to lower trade barriers around Geneva, the Director
ministerial meeting General of WTO, Pascal
Stampede in MCD Anand Sharma said,
the world to allow countries to increase
Lamy made a strong
school Page 3 trade globally
"We have reached an push for convening
Major issues of conflict (July 2008, Geneva)-
agreement to intensify another meeting to
t h e D o h a R o u n d agriculture, industrial tariffs and non-tariff finalize the modalities
n e g o t i a t i o n s . T h e barriers, services, and trade remedies for agriculture and
Special Lok Adalats i m p a s s e h a s b e e n Conflicting Groups: developed nations led NAMA. A revised draft
to settle power b r o k e n . A l l t h e by the European Union (EU), the United modalities for
participating countries States (USA) & Japan and the major
cases agriculture and NAMA
a g r e e d b y s t r o n g developing countries led and represented was brought out on
Page 3
consensus that the chief mainly by India, Brazil, China & South December 6 last year.
negotiators and the Africa.
Earlier in 2009 the
senior officials from the Director General
WTO countries will proposed resumption
meet in Geneva on September would form the basis to resume of negotiations using the revised
14 to re-start and re-energise the negotiations. draft as a starting point but the
trade talks, for which India had
taken the lead,"
The members unanimously negotiations had not resumed
re-affirmed to conclude the since then.
Doha Round within 2010. Mr.
Mr. Sharma informed that
the two drafts pertaining to S h a r m a expressed, “ The
Upmanyu

proceed accordingly.
The new website is designed in
accordance with the international
guidelines for such portals.
Undoubtedly, the new system
incorporates more people in its ambit;
thereby, more people can use this system
to seek response to their queries. By
making the system more user- friendly, it
truly empowers the masses to exercise
their Right to Information and makes the
government institutions and state powers
accountable to the citizens of India
Dipika
Editorial Supervisor: Prof. Ambrish Saxena
Student Editors: Ajeet, Pawan, Garima, Mamta, Dipika, Mehnaz, Ruchi, Upmanyu, Ritika, Jasneet, Rocky
committed by the kin of a family,
the announcement of the brutal
punishment is done by a Khap
Panchayat (prominent in UP and
Haryana) or a Caste Panchayat, a
court which protects traditional
norms of a particular caste in a
village. Even if a household agrees
to the will of their children, this
panchayat does not go with the
decision of the family instead
such families are asked to leave
the village.
Ravinder Singh Gehlout's
family was a recent target of Khap
Panchayat at Dharana village in
Haryana's Jhajjar district in which
the family had been asked to
Editorial Advisor: SD Tripathi
the masses when they were
almost forced to declare each
other as brother and sister. Last
year, in Bhiwani, two girls were
burnt alive just because they
went to greet some male friends
on Diwali.
Despite of knowing the
consequence of such acts, there
are some girls in Haryana who get
married secretly in courts and
never confront their parents as
they know they will be killed the
very moment they open their
mouth. According to a native girl,
she secretly got married to her
lover of different caste a year back
but she continues to stay in her
Layout Supervisor:Pawan Koundal
there are no enough records on
this dreadful act and that is why
the culprits are roaming around
without any hesitation. It is due to
t h e l a c k o f gove r n m e nt ' s
intervention that this heinous
crime is increasing day by day. The
policy makers in the government
knowingly stay away from these
issues to satiate their political
desires. They know that if they
interfere in this matter, they will
lose handsome vote banks from
the region. With such malice
prevailing in the society, the
country can hardly progress and
will be unable to compete on
international platform.
inflows
India's rupee advanced against the U.S.
dollar as overseas investors added to
holdings of the nation's assets amid
signs of accelerating economic growth .
Funds based abroad bought $8.7
billion more Indian equities than they
sold this year, according to the
Securities and Exchange Board of India.
The $1.2 trillion economy expanded 6.1
percent in the three months,
accelerating for the first time since
2007, the government said last month.
The rupee climbed 0.3 percent to
48.585 per dollar as of 11 a.m. in
Mumbai, according to data compiled by
Bloomberg. The currency has advanced
0.5 percent this month.
Garima
Jet strike called off
Jet pilots back to work after 5 day strike which affected over
20000 passengers
Jet Airways flights resumed on
Sunday after a 5 day strike with
the settlement among the
National Aviator's Guild and the
m a n a g e m e n t .
Management took back the four
sacked pilots and created a
consultation committee with five
pilots and five management
representatives to discuss other
issues, including the formation of
the union. Immediately
I nte r n at i o n a l f l i g hts we re
resumed, giving awaited break to
domestic flights for further few
hours.
T h e Natio n al Aviato r's
Guild(NAG), an unapproved union
of Jet Airways Pilot began strike
on 08 Sept,2009 at the issue of
sacking two of the senior pilots
with no proper reasons. More
than thousand flights were
cancelled ,irrespective of the
measures taken by the
organization to reduce the
impact of crisis. The organization
also approached the aviation
ministry to look into the matter.
Matter got more worse when
on Wednesday organization took
disciplinary action against 5 more
pilots as they went on sick leave to
join the protest.
Earlier more than 760
employees went on sick leave.
The company suffered losses
estimated at eight million dollar
daily.
Putting an end to the fragile
relationship between the
management and employees on
Saturday Cpt. Balaram reinstated
the duty. The dispute has
exemplified the touchy labour
relations in the country.
Jasneet