INDIA SUMMARIZED

What does Sonia Gandhi have in her income tax returns that she doesn’t reveal? That question arises after she airily brushed off an application from a Right to Information activist who sought details of her income-tax returns for 10 years from 2000-01 to 2010-11. The Times of India reports that V Gopalakrishnan, a Chennai-based RTI activist, filed an RTI application with the Income Tax Department seeking details of Sonia Gandhi’s tax returns from 2000-01 to 2010-11. The Assistant Commissioner of Income Tax, New Delhi, who is also the chief public information officer (CPIO) wrote to Sonia Gandhi in January to seek her response to the request for release of information pertaining to her tax records. But Sonia Gandhi declined permission for the release of the information, saying that disclosure of such private information to a third party, even if ostensibly made under the guise of transparency in public life, amounted to unwarranted invasion in the privacy of the individual. ...