Commissioners Meeting: International information commissioners will be holding a one-day conference on Sept. 20 at the Hilton Hotel in Manchester, England. The program has not been announced. Limited space for public attendance is available. The registration form is here. The commissioners will have a closed meeting on Sept. 21. The conference email contact is icicmanchester2017@ico.ico.org.uk. The last meeting of commissioners, the ninth such session, was held in April of 2015 in Chile. (See previous FreedomInfo.org article.)
India: “The Central Information Commission (CIC) has returned nearly half the applications it has received this year for wrongful denial of information under Right to Information (RTI) Act, seeking additional documents,” reports The Economic Times.
India: “Journalism through RTI Information, Investigation, Impact,” a new book by Shyamlal Yaday, Senior Editor, The Indian Express. A description:
The RTI Act has helped investigative journalism in getting information that otherwise would have been almost impossible to unearth despite legal provisions. Using the storyline approach, the author, through his own experiences, unravels how news was collected through persistent efforts using RTI, how the stories evolved, and how the subject was followed up keeping an eye on the rightful impact. Hence the emphasis is less on theory and more on practical aspects, making the book ‘a story behind India’s biggest news stories.
Pakistan: Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Marriyum Aurangzeb lays before the House “The Right of Access to Information Bill, 2017,” according to media accounts such as one in The Times of Islamabad.
Israel: The Strategic Affairs Ministry circulates draft legislation that would exclude its activities from provisions of the FOI law, reports Haaretz.
United States: “President Trump’s disclosure of classified information to Russian officials, reported by the Washington Post, may have been reckless, damaging and irresponsible. But it was not a crime.” So writes government secrecy expert Steve Aftergood.
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