Now, let the RTI Act be ingrained at the educational level

http://www.moneylife.in/article/now-let-the-rti-act-be-ingrained-at-the-educational-level/27446.html

Now, let the RTI Act be ingrained at the educational level


Vinita Deshmukh | 02/08/2012 08:31 AM |


For the RTI Act to become more effective and used by young citizens,
including it in the educational curriculum is being taken up
seriously. While the government is in discussions with the NCERT about
its implementation, Symbiosis has initiated a unique RTI programme for
its media students

While the RTI (Right to Information) Act in India is being currently
used by activists and thousands of citizens who have learnt through
self-learning or workshops, the government is seriously discussing
with the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT)
to introduce it as a lesson in schools and colleges.

Ten-year old Aishwarya Parashar of Lucknow created history by filing a
RTI query regarding the garbage dump outside her school and had a
library established in its place. In February this year, she created a
flutter by sending a RTI query to the PMO office, asking for the order
that gave Gandhiji the status of the "Father of the Nation". She is a
mini-activist with youngsters asking her RTI queries or doubts on her
mobile or email, and she quickly responds to them. This shows that if
school children are educated, they can become active RTI users and
help in monitoring governance or satiating curiosity.

Last fortnight Nepal, which implemented its RTI Act in 2007,
introduced the subject in the mass communication curriculum in its
secondary schools. For this, a leading RTI organisation, Freedom
Forum, continuously lobbied for educating students on right to
information, since the last two years. Finally, the Curriculum
Development Centre (CDC) under the ministry of education introduced
it.

In Maharashtra, the discussion to include a lesson of RTI in the
civics subject was talked about fervently in the early 2000s but is
yet to see reality. At that time too, discussions were almost bearing
fruition. RTI activists had lobbied for the introduction, in order
that the citizen-friendly RTI Act is ingrained at that impressionable
age and becomes known as everyone's tool for pro-active participation
in our democracy rather than a weapon in just the hands of few.

Many media colleges in India do touch upon the subject of RTI but not
enough to inspire young journalists to use it as a key tool for their
stories as they are not familiarized with it, comprehensively. Pioneer
of RTI movement, Aruna Roy insists that since 2005 when RTI Act was
introduced, journalists can take pride in procuring government
documents themselves by using RTI and thus skirting the traditional
"official source" which may have vested interest and may not provide
the whole truth. However, the RTI use in media fraternity is quite
low. Hence, it is appreciable that the Symbiosis Institute of Media &
Communication (SIMC), Pune, has recently initiated a unique RTI
familiarization and uses the programme for students to inculcate the
wide use of this tool for investigative and informative journalism.

A fortnight back, 300 under-graduate and post-graduate students of
Symbiosis Institute of Media & Communication, Symbiosis Law College
and Symbiosis School of Economics filed RTI applications in subjects
of their interest. The issues addressed were varied and the lesson on
how to write RTI applications was monitored by noted RTI activist
Nikhil Dey, member of MKSS (Mazdoor Kishan Shakti Sangthan) and RTI
activist Bhaskar Prabhu, founder of Mahiti Adhikar Manch. Presently,
these RTI applications are being classified as per 'city' and
'subjects' after which Pune-related RTI queries would be sent to the
respective public authorities by the students.

This exercise was conducted at the second, two day seminar of
Symbiosis Institute of Media & Communication, Pune. Pioneering RTI
crusader Aruna Roy was the chief guest of the seminar and addressed
students on the importance of using RTI as a tool for investigative
journalism. While SIMC has a chapter on RTI Act in its Media & Civic
Affairs subject, since March it has embarked upon a full-fledged
practical orientation programme to the subject through a series of
workshops and seminars to be held in the academic year. In order to
amplify the knowledge and use of RTI, SIMC is preparing a RTI manual
for journalists based on the two seminars, which would be available
online as well as in print in a book form, for the benefit of students
and journalists across the country.

It all started after stalwart journalist Dileep Padgaonkar took over
as professor, RK Laxman Chair, of the Symbiosis International
University in November last year. Elaborating the reason behind making
RTI an important subject amongst media students, Mr Padgaonkar says,
"some of the major scams in the past five years were revealed through
RTI activists. The media saw the news worthiness and subsequently took
it on as a systematic campaign. That's when I realised that RTI must
be used as a tool to improve the quality of journalism and the basic
principle was to know how to pit the power of truth against the truth
of power and therefore I thought, what is required, is a systematic
expression of the history of RTI Act, its achievement, the risks
involved as well as exposure of filing RTI applications, the follow up
required and after that, the need to get to the other side of the
story from the incriminated source."

Dr Eshwar Anand, professor of journalism and media studies, who is
steering this programme, states if students are well-trained in the
RTI Act and on how to file requests at the college-level itself, they
would become good journalists. "Earlier, there was a cloak of secrecy
around government offices and it was tough for journalists to get to
the truth. Now, barring some exemptions in the law, the young
journalist can access documents of civic affairs or those of national
importance. However, because training is lacking during his/her media
education days, most young journalists in our country are indifferent
to this powerful tool which can open up information quickly including
file notings. We will hopefully equip students with the necessary
confidence to file RTI, besides educating them about the law."

With the government attempts to dilute the RTI Act every now and
then, RTI activist Vijay Kumbhar believes that enlightening young
minds on this law will throw up a whole new generation of RTI-informed
citizens, making it difficult for the government to muddle around.

(Vinita Deshmukh is the consulting editor of Moneylife, an RTI
activist and convener of the Pune Metro Jagruti Abhiyaan. She is the
recipient of prestigious awards like the Statesman Award for Rural
Reporting which she won twice in 1998 and 2005 and the Chameli Devi
Jain award for outstanding media person for her investigation series
on Dow Chemicals. She co-authored the book "To The Last Bullet - The
Inspiring Story of A Braveheart - Ashok Kamte" with Vinita Kamte. She
can be reached at vinitapune@gmail.com)



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