RTI -Weapon of the common man

Hello RTI,

Late wishes for your 5th birthday.

By the way do you know how difficult your birth was and how long it took after the first idea ?

Well let me tell you it took a lot of efforts by activists like Aruna Roy, Arvind Kejriwal, Anna Hazare to name a few along with the support from the government that you came into being on 13th October 2005 in a landmark legislation for Indian democracy.

You have allowed citizens to demand information from the government regarding any government department or office and kept them on their toes and rightly made them realise that after all they are "Public Servants". There are officials who just do not want to reveal information. Not because they have something to hide. But only because they did not like the idea of being questioned. Now that you have come they need to be more careful because you can penalise them, even put them in jail for denying or hiding or misrepresenting any information.

You have come as an " Avatar " for the common man whose complaints earlier fell on deaf ears. Most of the government officials anticipate action once you visit their office and complete the job they are required to do to avoid embarassment.

Let me mention a couple of the many success stories where you have played a crucial role.

1. Hemant Karkare, Ashok Kamte and Vijay Salaskar the three police officers who were gunned down by terrorists were not provided with reinforcements for 40 minutes despite Karkare requesting for the same. Vinita Kamte author of the book " The Last Bullet " based on the incident procured call log records at the police headquarters with your help to seek information about the conversation. Such information would have been suppressed had you not been there.

2. Association for Democratic Reforms formed by IIM Ahmedabad Faculty and Alumni and National Institute of Design took your help to demand disclosure of Income tax returns of Political parties. Another achievement was the mandatory disclosure of assets, liabilities, criminal record and educational qualifications of people contesting elections.

You know what ? According to Transparency International India's ranking on Corruption Perception Index has gone from 74th to 87th in the last four years after your birth.

Does it mean that you have exposed a lot of shit which TI could not find out ? Well done !!

But dude you know what ? You need to market yourself a lot.

There are many people who are not even aware that you exist. Leave alone knowing how to seek help from you.

Well just a word of caution. A lot of your close friends(read Activists) whom you have been helping a lot have been attacked( 8 murders and 20 serious attacks in the last 15 months). Unless the government does something to protect your friends you will have a tough time. Its a bad world out there trying to suppress you. Enable us all to seek your help in a tactful way.

By the way i am going to seek your help for the first time tomorrow. Hope we become good friends and our association grows by leaps and bounds.

As i conclude let me pay my respect to all the martyrs who fought against the system with your help and were brutally murdered.