Dear friends and colleagues,
On August 1st 2019, the National Campaign for Peoples’ Right to Information launched a year long “Use RTI, Demand Accountability” campaign. This campaign was initiated as a response to the recent amendments to the Right to Information Act by the Central Government which weakens one of the most popular and widely used legislations in India. The campaign was initiated to counter the rhetoric of this government that all information is being proactively disclosed and there is a reduced need for the RTI itself and to continue to put pressure on the government by demanding accountability. This campaign was conceived with the intention of bringing individuals and organizations together in solidarity and support and to strengthen the RTI network across the country.
Through this campaign, interested citizens, RTI users, various people’s movements, organizations and individuals working on a wide range of issues have been filing RTI applications for the past three months and will continue to file RTI applications on pressing issues of public interest on the 1st of every month.
RTI applications are being filed on several critical issues such as Adivasi Rights, Public Health, Transparency and Accountability, Food and Nutrition, Pensions and Social Security, Employment, Dalit Rights, Aadhaar, Women’s’ Rights, Urban Housing, Banking, Mining and Environmental Governance, Agriculture, Land Rights, Tribal and Forest Rights, the Economy, Education, Media, Democratic rights to name a few.
Till date 365 RTI applications have been filed. Some of the RTI applications already filed include information on – district mineral funds, lynching cases, Aadhaar and voter ID linkages, the Kathua rape case, electoral bonds, Aadhaar based exclusions in the National Food Security Act amongst many others.
As a part of this campaign, we appeal to all of you and request your participation by filing RTI applications in your respective states on issues of public importance that you are working on and to share the details with us on rtilagao@gmail.com, where all the RTI applications filed are being uploaded, tracked and collated on our website. We also request you to share the message of this campaign widely within your networks.
We hope that by coming together in support and solidarity to collectively protect the RTI movement we will be able to send out a clear public message that the significance and energy of the RTI campaign will not be supressed by any anti-transparency tactics employed by the Central Government.
Please find attached a link to a short film on the RTI lagao campaign that you can use to popularize the campaign in your networks on whatsapp or via email:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5H_UCbPcgI&feature=youtu.be
For any further information please contact us on 7827438462 or 9650346518
Warm regards,
Divya and Asmi