Janjivan Bureau
New Delhi : Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the 10th Annual Convention of the Central Information Commission today and said RTI has strengthen the democracy.RTI can help in reviewing government policies. RTI replies should be timely, transparent PM said.
“In this age there is no need for secrecy. More openness in governance will help citizens.” PM said.
The two day convention is being organized on the theme of “RTI: Outlook for the future – Trust through Transparency”.
The Union Finance Minister Shri Arun Jaitley also addrtessed the convention during the inaugural session.
He stressed on transforming India into open society and said nobody can defy or bypass technology.
The inaugural session will be followed by Technical sessions on themes focusing on the various aspects of working of the Commission and the benefits of the RTI Act, as observed during the decade.
On another hand a number of prominent activists, who had campaigned for the pathbreaking Right to Information Act (RTI), have decided to boycott its tenth anniversary convention.
Activist Aruna Roy, who has been invited to the convention but has decided to boycott it in solidarity with her fellows, has accused the Intelligence Bureau of running background checks on activists, which ended up in only a handful being invited.
“It is severely restricted. Only seven have been invited. The contribution of civil society has been appreciated by everyone. We do not understand why this intelligence check was necessary. There have never been such measures before,” Roy told reporters on Thursday.
“The Chief Information Commissioner reportedly wanted to invite more activists, but the government did not allow it. This is the government’s interference in the CIC,” she said.
Roy’s colleague Anjali Bhardwaj echoed the sentiment. “People who have an important role to play in using and protecting RTI are being left out of the process. The invites have gone out to a few people and the most important left out,” she said.
“It’s important to send across the message that the civil society has to be given space to voice out their thoughts,” Bhardwaj added as she announced her boycott of the event with Roy.
Another noted activist Nikhil Dey called the denial of invite to the civil society “an unfortunate step for democracy” and said the activists have always helped any government with suggestions on running the country.
