The power of RTI
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It is more revolutionary than using a gun, says Aruna Roy
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Sound advice: Aruna Roy with students at the Indian Institute of Journalism and New Media
Exhorting young journalism students to use the Right To Information Act, initiator of the RTI movement, Aruna Roy, said that though the Act is approaching its fifth anniversary, the campaign to push for government transparency and active use of the system must run parallel with each other.
As a guest lecturer (IIJNM, www.iijnm.org), she narrated anecdotes from her campaigns in rural Rajasthan, where she continues to work for Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS).
The organisation was in the forefront of the movement in the 1990s that inspired the RTI Act. Roy said the right to information is linked to the right to life; it is more revolutionary than taking up a gun and fighting.
Five years after it became a law, the RTI Act has created unprecedented dialectics between the individuals and government officials, and has created a climate in which honest and enabled people can step out and say something in the public domain, Roy said.
Roy is currently working with other national groups in the campaign against Special Economic Zones, or SEZs. The SEZ Act, which she pointed out was passed without debate by the same Parliament that passed the RTI, has allowed land to be taken away from farmers and tribal people, subsequently denying their rights as citizens.
Just as the public was mobilised to push for India's Right to Information Act, the country must also mobilise opinion to fight against SEZs, she said.
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