Since our last report for the month of December, IFF has filed 10 RTI requests and 2 first appeals. In this post, we give you an overview of the requests filed and an analysis of the responses we have received from the different public authorities.

At a hearing dated January 31, 2022, IFF’s intervention application challenging the Telecom Suspension Rules, 2017 has been allowed by the Gauhati High Court, and IFF has been impleaded in the case. IFF is now allowed to assist the Court with oral and written submissions in the proceedings.

In the second part of our series on the Ministry of Civil Aviation’s DigiYatra Scheme, we analyse how the collected personal data may end up commercialised even as the Scheme fails to deliver on its promised convenience.

IFF filed an RTI Application to find out whether the MIB has issued notices for information to news publishers, and to which publishers. The MIB has admitted that it has indeed issued two such notices, and that more than two thousand publishers have responded to these notices!

Social Media platforms have released their reports for Oct 2021 in compliance with Rule 4(1)(d), IT Rules 2021. They continue to suffer from the same shortcomings, which exhibits lack of effort on the part of the SSMIs and the govt. to further transparency and accountability in platform governance.