Right To Information Hero

Shailesh Gandhi ran his plastic manufacturing company successfully for 23 years, and then sold it off to spend rest of his life in "giving back to society".

He seems to have found his 'calling' in championing the cause of Right to Information Act in India. He has been hounding the government by filing more than 800 RTI applications and creating awareness about the power of RTI as an empowering tool in the hands of an individual citizen.

Some of his thoughts:

The United Nations' Human Rights 1948 Declaration was a landmark because it mentioned freedom of expression in the same breath as right to information; one cannot properly function without the other for when you don't know the real facts then how can you express freely?

...

When the individual is empowered, he can shake things up, because he doesn't need to compromise his stand just to let his views be heard, which would happen if he were to go through an organization. Every citizen wants to challenge the government, but it is too time and energy-consuming to do so. The RTI makes things simpler.

The government has responded by appointing him as the Central Information Commissioner. He has the accepted the challenge with a caveat:

My philosophy and ideals will not undergo any change. Infact , if the system try to co-opt me, I may call it quits as I am only responsible to the people of this country.

However, his commitment level is very high - he has set a target of disposing 350 -400 appeals every month from the current average of 15-200 appeals per month.

Currently, the number of appeals at State Information Commission are over 16,000, and the appeals at CIC are over 8,000.

This IIT Alumnus will take only a token of Rupees 1 as he "has earned enough to lead a simple life.''

You may download a "RTI Primer for Beginners" here.

The RTI Application format is here.

Now, how many RTI applications will you file?