PMO Restricts MeitY From Revealing How PM CARES Got gov.in Domain Name
With the Prime Minister s Office insisting that the Fund is not a public authority, an application had sought information about how it received a domain name that was exclusively restricted to government websites.
The logo of PM CARES Fund on an oxygen tank. Photo: Twitter/TezpurH
Rights18 hours ago
New Delhi: The Prime Ministerâs Office (PMO) recently restrained the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) from disclosing in response to an application filed under the Right to Information Act (RTI) as to how the PM CARES Fund, set up at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic last year, was granted the gov.in domain despite not being a public authority.
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Social media, several organisations and media continue to raise questions about the structure, accountability and transparency of the Prime Minister s Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations Fund (PM CARES Fund) which is being labelled as a private trust by every government authority. Amidst all this, a query filed under Right to Information (RTI) shows that this private trust was given the .gov.in domain that is reserved for government authorities.
Responding to an appeal filed by Commodore Lokesh Batra (retd) under the RTI Act, the National Informatics Centre (NIC), which manages the .gov.in domains, says, .the domain pmcares.gov.in was allotted to PMO (apex body) complying with the guidelines for allocation of registration at the third level under .gov.in domain zone dated 23 October 2019 , issued by the internet governance division, ministry of electronics and information technology (MeitY).