By Munize Ali, TwoCircles.net,
Shillong: The 3-day national convention on Right to Information concluded in Shillong on March 13, 2011. About one thousand activists from all over the country and South Asia took part in the convention that held 20 workshops, 6 interactive sessions, street & stage play, music, exhibitions and film shows.
The 3rd National RTI Convention held in Shillong from 10th March to 12th March was organized by National Campaign for People’s Right to Information in cooperation with its local partner organization the Meghalaya Right to Information Movement (MRTIM).
The Day 1 marked the inauguration by the Meghalaya Governor Ranjit Shekhar Mooshahary and it was followed by street plays, musical shows and political slogans by RTI activists from different parts of the country and a procession called “Ghotala Rath Yatra”.
On Day 2 several activists spoke in the plenary sessions. Justice J.S Verma, Ex chief justice of Supreme Court, James Lyngdoh, Trilochan Shastry, Usha Ramanathan, Muzzafar Bhat, Venkatesh Nayak, Aruna Roy, Former CIC and Commissioner of Minority Commission Wajahat Habibullah and Harsh Mander were eminent personalities who spoke in the plenary session.
As many as 20 workshops were organized on different themes like RTI and access to justice, RTI and minority rights, RTI and education, RTI and youth, RTI and human rights, RTI and north east Institutions etc.
Several issues that came up during these discussions varied from threat and murder of RTI activists to denial and delaying tactics of information officers and inaccessible information commissions, from pendency of cases to corruption and exemptions by the government.
It came into light that Central Information Commission receives about 3000 applications per month and out of that only 300 are disposed in a month. There is a huge backlog of cases and if proper action is not taken right now, it will create problem in future and it will take about 4-5 years to get information for an applicant.
For North East India, exemptions of several security agencies like police remained a concern during discussion.
Eleven resolutions were passed at the end of the convention. They include concerns over exemptions of different agencies especially security agencies, religious institutions, and social audit of different projects like NREGA.