Offbeat Revelations
- Revealed: several rules flouted in Padma awards to Sant Singh Chatwal and others
- 바카라Top secret바카라 correspondence between PM and Sonia Gandhi on RTI amendments becomes public
- Rs 26 lakh collected for relief after 1971 Bangladesh war found to have vanished
- Journalist exposes doctors with fake medical degrees in private and public hospitals
- Background checks of prospective grooms in state service
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바카라Hum kyon government se soochna maangte hain?바카라 asks Dwarika Prasad Nauni, RTI state coordinator for the Mountain Children바카라s Foundation in Uttarakhand, as he wraps up a workshop on the right to information with 30-odd tweens and teens in Dehradun바카라s Horrawala village. 바카라Kyonki hum tax dete hain,바카라 pipes up a 12-year-old, chewing on his pen in a rain-soaked portico.
Clearly, Dwarika hasn바카라t wasted his breath. In fact, he is used to such bang-on responses, having seen nearly 500 RTI applications바카라on sanitation, lack of playgrounds and low voltage, among other things바카라filed by bal panchayat children trained by the foundation from across the state in the space of 12 months. The involvement of the young with RTI has been growing apace here ever since the Right to Information Act came into effect on October 12, 2005. 바카라The public faces may be older,바카라 says Shekhar Singh, who was part of the act바카라s drafting team, 바카라but the movement is energised by the young.바카라
A study Shekhar initiated in 2008 found that 31 per cent of rural applicants and 26 per cent of urban applicants were aged below 35. Two years on, those numbers have only risen, but even so, he stresses, 바카라The actual participation of young people, in terms of helping others know about and write applications, is far greater than what statistics show.바카라 Shekhar adds that if it weren바카라t for some parents wanting to shield their children from possible victimisation, the role of the young would be even more visible.
He seems to be right. Walk into any organisation oiling the wheels of the RTI machine바카라be it the J&K RTI Movement office near Srinagar, Sandhan in Katni, Madhya Pradesh, the Calcutta-based West Bengal RTI Manch or the RTI Study Centre in Bangalore바카라and the buzz centres around young faces. Not all are activists, or even applicants, but they are all, in some way or the other, part of the information revolution by choice, driven by their faith in this new-found 바카라magic wand바카라. Eighteen-year-old Mohsin Khan, for instance, religiously drops in at Parivartan바카라s Kaushambi office in Ghaziabad near Delhi (to which he was introduced by his banker cousin Feroz, who quit his job to join the organisation), even if it means skipping classes. Mohsin is joined by over 30 volunteers, all in their early 20s, working against time to identify the best performing state for this year바카라s RTI award. Last year, Arunachal Pradesh came out tops, while Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh fared the worst.
This year, Kalidas Reddy will be looking out for Karnataka. The 26-year-old law student, who learnt about RTI at N. Vikramsimha바카라s Study Centre, went from theory to practice thanks to his neighbour, a private pre-university candidate whom Bangalore University refused to admit. 바카라After I filed an RTI for guidelines on admitting private candidates, the university said its 바카라regulations/guidelines are silent바카라 about it. I went to the media with it, and subsequently the university declared that private students would be permitted to study in regular courses,바카라 recalls Kalidas with satisfaction.
One reason why RTI is firing the imagination of the young, at least in urban areas, is its usefulness in dealing with educational institutions. As Magsaysay awardee RTI activist, Parivartan바카라s Arvind Kejriwal, puts it, 바카라The culture of questioning is taking root. Even in so-called hallowed institutions, walls are crumbling.바카라 He cites how the use of RTI forced the UPSC to reveal its long-controversial selection procedure, and pushed IIT-JEE against the wall to check irregularities in cut-off marks. In Delhi University (DU), thanks to RTI, the university budget was finally released on its website. Bhopal, too, is seeing young engineering students questioning fee structure and fund allocation in their colleges, while both in Shimla and Imphal, teachers found to be appointed without meeting the required criteria were dismissed.
Such tangible impact has meant a rise in RTI applications, confirms DU public information officer Jay Chandra, 바카라from 1,100 in 2007 to 1,900 in 2009바카라. (These figures exclude colleges that handle RTI independently.) This year, 1,500 applications have already come in. For students fearing a backlash, Saurabh Sharma of the youth organisation, Josh, offers an ingenious way out: 바카라Students file for information in each other바카라s colleges instead of their own, so that no one gets into trouble.바카라
Look back 15 years, and such a scenario would be difficult to even imagine. Dilip Simeon, a former DU academic, says, 바카라It was virtually impossible to get this kind of information then. If you were not happy with your marks, at most you could apply for revaluation...but you could even end up getting less marks than you did initially. Student unions could not make inroads into administration or far-reaching inquiries into areas like teachers바카라 appointments.바카라 That said, the new openness does generate its own problems. As DU professor Alok Rai points out, while RTI might grant access to answer scripts, it cannot obviate the subjectivity inherent in evaluation, leading to interminable arguments. These pitfalls notwithstanding, it바카라s clear that students have found a last-resort tool for redressal in a largely opaque, dysfunctional system.
But it바카라s not just the E-word that drives youth involvement with RTI. Magsaysay award-winning activist Aruna Roy, who heads the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (which played a big part in making the RTI Act a reality), points out that hundreds of young people in rural areas (where 60 per cent of India바카라s youth is) are using RTI to address gaps and distortions in the nrega. A slogan pasted on a rundown steel cupboard in the Parivartan office sums up the mood: 바카라Sarkar se jawab maango/har vibhag se hisab maango.바카라 Ask 23-year-old Hemant Kumar Rathod, who has pulled up gram panchayats, rural hospitals and questioned the use of school funds. On the 70-km journey from Mysore, where he studies, to his village, GB Halli in rural Karnataka (which he visits every weekend to file RTI applications), he excitedly points out the stretch of once-potholed road that he got repaired through RTI two years ago. In Delhi바카라s Model Town, Mohit Goel filed his first RTI application three years ago, when the MCD dug up roads in his locality and forgot about them. When the roads were hurriedly repaired, it inspired the 32-year-old senior marketing manager to shoot off 90 more applications.
At Josh, Saurabh and Aheli Chawdhury know that feeling well. Putting the act바카라s inspection clause to use, Josh inspected over 50 roads that the Delhi government claimed it was making on a budget of Rs 400 crore. One road had only been constructed on paper. 바카라When we asked to inspect it, the road was completed over the weekend,바카라 says Saurabh with relish.
Never short of success stories to relate, 25-year-old RTI activist Ankita Anand says, 바카라People called RTI a middle-class phenomenon because it entailed paperwork. They바카라d say 바카라Yahan roti ka sawal hai and you바카라re talking about information바카라. But for those who do not get their ration or are awaiting their bpl cards, it is a question of survival. Filing RTIs brings results,바카라 she says.
One challenge these young RTI enthusiasts have set themselves is to dispel the misconception that one needs expertise in legal jargon to write an application. Visiting schools and colleges, they stress time and again that even handwritten questions submitted to the Public Information Officer바카라the first point person for the applicant바카라with a fee (Rs 10 usually) will do. On principle, Ankita has taken to not writing out questions for lazy applicants, even though she has the format pat: 바카라I바카라d rather spend two hours explaining the process to someone who can thereafter do it himself or herself.바카라
That level of dedication to the cause is shared by other young people. Damini Ghosh, for one, gave up a lucrative career in corporate law to join central information commissioner Shailesh Gandhi and 바카라do something more meaningful바카라. Her colleague, Rajorshi Roy, joined the Central Information Commission, quitting a UNAIDS job and taking a hefty pay cut. Gandhi also recalls how Shibani Ghosh, a Rhodes scholar, worked with him before moving on to environmental law. 바카라These are bright, outstanding young people, who are working for peanuts. Clearly, they are in it for the empowering feeling it gives them, of being part of something worthwhile,바카라 he points out.
It바카라s not just satisfaction at seeing work done, says Prateek Pandey of the Chhattisgarh Citizens바카라 Initiative. 바카라When something gets achieved through RTI, it gives you a sense of identity irrespective of social class,바카라 says Prateek. 바카라It is a means for young people to be taken seriously as participants in democracy,바카라 feels Pune-based Vijay Kumbhar, who runs an RTI website, surajya.org.
They also make enemies in the process: Parivartan바카라s Santosh Jha ducked in time to dodge a razor aimed at her neck, while 30-year-old Sola Ranga Rao from Andhra Pradesh, who sought information on funding for his village drainage system, paid with his life; like Amit Jethwa, also in his early 30s. And success stories notwithstanding, extracting information from the system is a gruelling task. Tellingly, city municipal corporations, the police, railways and the ministry of external affairs have been identified as the worst offenders when it comes to delaying or not replying to RTI applications despite the Central Information Commission바카라s orders. An activist says the police has been known to demand Rs 20,000 to Rs 30,000 in exchange for information, purportedly to pay 바카라staff salaries바카라. Earlier this year, the CIC pulled up Delhi Police and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi for not helping out an RTI applicant바카라s friends, who were assaulted during a site inspection. The bureaucracy, meanwhile, is intent on whittling down the act, to make it less accountable.
Yes, it바카라s a battleground out there, but these young warriors are upbeat about it. This, after all, is the information generation, growing up with the power to dig out what generations before didn바카라t even know how to question. As Shailesh Gandhi points out, 바카라There is great potential in the act, provided it is not treated as a grievance redressal tool, and the youth is privileged to have it.바카라 Chief information commissioner Wajahat Habibullah, who describes the act as a 바카라qualified success바카라 so far and expects it to take root over the next 10 years, agrees: 바카라In my time, the primary objective of a young man was a good education and the civil services. Now, that is changing, with greater professionalism and a sense of freedom among youth, which makes RTI appropriate and timely.바카라
For all the indifference attributed to the stereotype of youth, their RTI applications tell a different story. Shekhar Singh spells it out: 바카라All the cynicism I see is among older people. What spurs us on despite the obstacles to RTI reaching its full potential is the knowledge that the youth is on our side.바카라
By Arpita Basu and Neha Bhatt
