Notings not part of ‘information’
To an extent,
governments may be right in guarding their deeds. Not everything is easily understood by people at large and when emotions take over, things can get messy. That, however, doesn’t appear to be why the union cabinet opted to amend the Right to Information (RTI) Act in a meeting on July 20. The cabinet decided to keep “file notings” outside the purview of sharable information.
The RTI Act was born because of a popular movement against the opaque manner of governance. Government employees had gone too soft and too corrupt because nobody knew what they were doing. In this context, file notings are basically a few lines of scribbled opinion at the various stages a file passes through. For example, a single file may tell us how a bureaucrat and several ministers went about a decision. Now, the government fears it may be embarrassed by its own thoughts & so the newest amendment.
Not everyone agrees with this. Chief Information Commissioner, Wajahat Habibullah has in the past shared information the government didn’t want to. On the cabinet amendment, Habibullah says, “Our job is to follow the law... File notings come under the RTI.” Clearly, the ambiguity is because Article 2 (f) of the RTI Act mentions “file” under “material” used to define “information”. But the government now cleverly proclaims that file notings are not part of “information”.
Amusingly, this means that all that the government has to do to stop people from taking advantage of the RTI Act, is to change the definition of what comes under “information”. One wonders how long would it take for the government to pass a bill announcing that information itself is not part of ‘information’? Well, if you’ve read the previous article properly, you would have got the answer by now... 24 hours!
For More IIPM Article, Click on IIPM Article
Source : IIPM Editorial, 2006, Editor - Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri
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To an extent,
governments may be right in guarding their deeds. Not everything is easily understood by people at large and when emotions take over, things can get messy. That, however, doesn’t appear to be why the union cabinet opted to amend the Right to Information (RTI) Act in a meeting on July 20. The cabinet decided to keep “file notings” outside the purview of sharable information.The RTI Act was born because of a popular movement against the opaque manner of governance. Government employees had gone too soft and too corrupt because nobody knew what they were doing. In this context, file notings are basically a few lines of scribbled opinion at the various stages a file passes through. For example, a single file may tell us how a bureaucrat and several ministers went about a decision. Now, the government fears it may be embarrassed by its own thoughts & so the newest amendment.
Not everyone agrees with this. Chief Information Commissioner, Wajahat Habibullah has in the past shared information the government didn’t want to. On the cabinet amendment, Habibullah says, “Our job is to follow the law... File notings come under the RTI.” Clearly, the ambiguity is because Article 2 (f) of the RTI Act mentions “file” under “material” used to define “information”. But the government now cleverly proclaims that file notings are not part of “information”.
Amusingly, this means that all that the government has to do to stop people from taking advantage of the RTI Act, is to change the definition of what comes under “information”. One wonders how long would it take for the government to pass a bill announcing that information itself is not part of ‘information’? Well, if you’ve read the previous article properly, you would have got the answer by now... 24 hours!
For More IIPM Article, Click on IIPM Article
Source : IIPM Editorial, 2006, Editor - Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri
Visit More IIPM Sites :
http://jroller.com/page/info
http://jroller.com/page/SUCCESS
http://my.opera.com/sonu-a/
http://my.opera.com/sonu-b/
http://iipm-centers.blogspot.com/
http://placements-iipm.blogspot.com/
http://free-blog-site.com/iipm_publication
http://free-blog-site.com/iipm_2
http://www.seedwiki.com/wiki/iipm_publication/
http://www.seedwiki.com/wiki/iipm/
http://www.seedwiki.com/wiki/iipm_b-school
http://www.fairspirit.com/sonu00/
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