Right To Information: Analyses
The Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) of India, Wajahat Habibullah, has reportedly told Indian Express that he believes that penalizing RTI officers will not get them to do their duty – that ahimsa towards the officers would help spread RTI.
A review of three different articles on the importance of complete access to files vis-a-vis RTI by Arvind Kejriwal in The Stateman, Aruna Roy and Nikhil De in The Kashmir Times and Maja Daruwala and Venkatesh Nayak in The Daily Tribue.
Under pressure from citizens all over the country, the UPA government has decided not to introduce any amendment to RTI during this session.
Visting Hardoi, Sitapur, Unnao, Chandauli, Varanasi and Sultanpur during the ongoing 1st to 15th July, 2006, RTI campaign, which has now become popular as ‘Use RTI : Don’t Pay Bribe’ national campaign, one finds that the officials are quite reluctant to see the Right to Information Act, 2005, implemented in its true spirit. Sandeep Pandey reports from UP.
Various citizen groups and civic society leaders have expressed disappointment at the attempted amendment to limit file notings from RTI disclosures.
Since the first of July, a concerted effort by Civic Society Organizations, Non Government Organizations, individuals and a prominent TV news channel - NDTV and leading national newspapers are coming together to launch a national campaign
How does the the National Right to Information Act compare with the Maharashtra RTI Act?
The right to information campaign in India began with the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan ( MKSS) movement to bring in transparency in village accounts via the demand for minimum wages in rural India. Ghost entries in muster rolls were a sign of rampant corruption in the system, which prompted MKSS to demand official information recorded in government files.
The Maharashtra Right to Information (MRTI) Act has compelled the administration to be answerable to the people. It has empowered citizens to demand accountability and transparency in administration. The National RTI Act borrowed from the learnings of MRTI.