12-yr-old follows dad’s lead to be RTI activist : Apeksha Yadwad has filed 50 RTI applications including one to the Lok Sabha secretariat, seeking answers to HDK’s dismal attendance. From the looks of it, this is only the beginning.

Bangalore Mirror: Bangalore: Saturday, October 13, 2012.

It’s common for children to follow in their parent’s footsteps, and Apeksha Yadwad is no different in that respect. But the difference lies in the fact that she’s gearing up to be an RTI activist.

It started with 12-year-old Apeksha’s query to her father on what would happen if MPs were absent from parliament and whether they were punished – the way students were by not being allowed to write exams. “She saw statistics on H D Kumaraswamy, our MP, while I was studying it. What struck her was the 40 per cent attendance in the slide. She asked what would be the consequence if the attendance was less than 50 per cent and if he didn’t ask questions in either house. I asked her to find out with the help of RTI and guided her. She went ahead and did it,” said Anand Yadwad, Apeksha’s father.

Yadwad, a techie with city-based Mapunity, has filed over 50 RTI applications so far and encouraged his daughter to shoot off her first one.

Four questions;

With her parents’ guidance, Apeksha – a class 7 student of Silicon City Public School – wrote out the four questions herself. She asked: If a member of parliament’s attendance is less than 50 per cent, what action will you take against him or her? Will this MP be allowed to contest again? What action will you take against an MP who never asks any question in the sessions? Why do you allow a person who has criminal cases against him/her to contest elections?

Interestingly, unlike RTI queries that take months, Apeksha’s queries were answered within days of writing to the Lok Sabha secretariat. The reply stated: “If for a period of sixty days, a member of either house of parliament is, without permission of the house, absent from all meetings thereof, the house may declare his seat vacant.”

To Apeksha’s second question, the secretariat PIO said that no information was available. Replying to the third question, it said the rules of procedure and the Constitution do not prescribe any action against such an MP. And to the last question, it replied: “The Lok Sabha secretariat has no say in the contesting of elections. The question of eligibility of a person with criminal records contesting Lok Sabha elections is dealt by the Election Commission of India. The Lok Sabha secretariat is not in a position to furnish information on this point.’

This, says Apeksha, was an eye-opener as the questions had popped out of information her father had shared about Kumaraswamy.

“I’m happy that I got a reply. It was my first application and I was excited to get the information. Now, again with my father’s help, I will try to go a step ahead and find out if our MP, whose attendance is very low, had taken permission from the House,” Apeksha told Bangalore Mirror. Her parents are thrilled about her interest. 

“It’s like charity beginning at home. When we are educating and creating awareness among people to take up RTI activism, it’s better we start at home. That’s what I’m doing,” Yadwad, a member of India Against Corruption, said..