Times of India: New Delhi: Saturday, April 30, 2016.
When the
political class unites against something, you sense what they are protesting is
probably good and beneficial for the common man. That’s certainly true of the
Right To Information (RTI) Act, one of the finest achievements of the erstwhile
UPA government.
It brought a
measure of transparency to governments when India’s bane has been opaque
governance, which inevitably leads to poor and corrupt governance as
authorities can do what they like without having to be accountable for their
actions (or inaction).
But
surprisingly (or perhaps not so surprisingly) Congress MPs and UPA allies such
as Praful Patel have been at the forefront of protesting RTI in parliament, as
chronicled in this TOI report. Neither does NDA have much love lost for RTI.
The government too proved receptive to the protests and promised to look into
“misuse” of RTI (belying NDA’s and UPA’s usual behaviour of disagreeing on
everything and going hammer and tongs at each other).
Praful Patel
complained any chaiwala and panwala can now post queries under RTI, before
stopping short as he realised that PM Modi often refers to his origins as a tea
seller. He went on to say, somewhat incoherently, “There is no disrespect to
the PM. Rather it is an honour.”
Samajwadi
Party MP Naresh Agrawal wanted to know which neighbouring country has a law
like RTI. This is further evidence what many statements and actions of
politicians in recent times are leading us to suspect: that Pakistan is held up
as a model of good governance, which is worth our while to emulate.
Death
threats, often followed up with actual murders, are a reality RTI activists
have to contend with. As reported here Brijiraj Kishan, a 40 year old financial
consultant has sought the President’s permission to commit suicide because of
death threats following an RTI query probing possible financial misdemeanours
by officials of the Meerut Development Authority
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