Right to Information

Babu Ram Chauhan always knew what was coming but he could not afford drop what he was doing. Belonging to Ramgarh village located near to India’s border with Pakistan in west Rajasthan, Chauhan exposed encroachment on more than 17,000 hectares prime irrigated land in the area. On July 11, he was kidnapped while returning home after teaching at a school 30 km away from his village. The kidnappers beat him up badly, shaved his head and forced urine down his throat. They would have thrown him in the Indira Gandhi canal but for a few passersby who raised an alarm. 

RTI users are increasingly being targeted for exposing wrongdoings in public offices. Through its website, RTI Anonymous group offers a service of filing RTI applications

Visit Rangpar village in Rajkot district of Gujarat and you will be amazed by a smooth, winding road that leads to an otherwise quaint settlement. The fact that this road was made possible by a blind resident further feeds the wonderment.

Public officers have been wrongly invoking exemptions under national interest to deny information under the RTI Act. A two-part series done for The Hoot tracks denials and the CIC's approach.

The Right to information movement we are currently witness to owes its existence to farmers and labourers in small villages of Rajasthan who in the late 90s demanded that official records regarding government funds be made public and the corrupt brought to book. Continued pressure by non-government groups and activists for transparency in governance led to enactment of the RTI Act in 2005. GOI Monitor accessed and assessed the data related to its performance at the central level through first five years of its existence. Here are the highs and lows.