RTI Review Meeting held at Chennai

[rlsaravanan]

A Review meeting on "RTI-its use and challenges" was held in chennai on 15-03-2003 between 10 to 12.30 am at Arasan mahal, C.L.C. works road, Chrompet.
The programme was organised by "THE PEOPLES AWARENESS CENTRE" and was convened by its President Mr.V.Santhanam. About 100 actitivts have participated in the meeting. Mr.V.Santhanam, Mr.R.L.Saravanan(advocate and RTI activist), Mr. Traffic Ramasamy (PIL fame), Mr.Retna pandian (5th pillar) and others have addressed the gathering on the issues on RTI. Quite a number of success stories were discussed. The attitude of Government officals towards the RTI applicants were discussed. Chennai police commissionerate was adjudged as the best organisation in disposing the RTI applications in state level and the southern railway was judged as the best central government organisation.
4 resoultions were made in the meeting such as inceasing the responisbility of FAA in the penal provisions, Effective functioning of the Tamil Nadu Information Commission, Government's initiative to spread the awareness by campaigns and etc.
The meeting was covered by press.

Regards

R.L.Saravanan

[taurus]

What was the basis for awarding the first, second ranks etc? Is there any mechanism to collect the statistics or it is based on perception only?

[rlsaravanan]

it based on the experiance of the collective rti activists who have attended to the meeting

[taurus]

That is good. But yet it appears to be subjective and based on perception and not on hard data. This does not mean that I am criticizing the award. I am just stating that it would be preferable to do so on solid data. Ofcourse, it requires lot of work, resource and time.

[dmanoj]

When is the next meeting planned. Would like to meet up, I have had mixed results with RTI, I have made so far 30 applications with many closed in the 1st appeal my areas are primarily on corruption and misuse of power... Cheers Manoj