About

Objectives

The National Campaign for Peoples’ Right to Information (NCPRI) is a platform of individuals and organizations committed to making the Indian government and society more transparent and accountable. It seeks to empower people and to deepen democracy, through promoting the people’s right to know. By encouraging disclosure of information relevant to the public, it seeks to fight corruption and social apathy, to make governments, and other institutions and agencies having an impact on public welfare, more humane and accountable to the people they are meant to serve.

Values

The NCPRI is committed to support a participatory, just, informed, secular and humane democracy.

Methods and Activities

The NCPRI endeavors to constantly engage and interact with the State and other institutions and agencies. It campaigns for the use of the right to information law that is effective and accessible to all, and supports people’s efforts at developing the ability and motivation to use the right to information for addressing individual and social problems. It supports the development of materials related to transparency and governance, the raising of awareness about the  fundamental value of information, the conduct of research, and the setting up of information clearing houses. It seeks to further the cause of transparency by adopting other direct and indirect methods, including the filing of information requests, the fighting of legal cases, and the holding of public hearings.

The NCPRI seeks to actively work with other progressive campaigns and movements and in solidarity with other progressive elements of society.

SHILLONG DECLARATION ON THE RIGHT TO INFORMATION
Declaration made by the participants of the Third National RTI Convention, held in Shillong, between March 10-12, 2011

    WE, THE PARTICIPANTS OF THE THIRD NATIONAL RTI CONVENTION,
    HEREBY DECLARE THAT:
    1. It is the responsibility of the government to properly implement proactive disclosures under Section 4 of the RTI Act. We therefore demand that they urgently fulfil this responsibility.
    2. We urgently need an anti-corruption commission or body, like the Lokpal/Lokayukta, which can ensure that information accessed through the RTI Act that exposes corruption is acted upon and the guilty are held accountable.
    3. It is the moral responsibility of the government to protect RTI activists and users, and take swift legal action against the attackers. It is also the moral obligation of governments and information commissions to ensure that, if an activist is attacked, the information that was being sought by the assaulted activist is urgently and on a priority basis, put in the public domain and followed up.
    4. There must be a process by which all draft legislations, before they are introduced in Parliament or in legislative assemblies, are put in the public domain and there are public consultations before their enactment.
    5. The constitution and functioning of information commissions requires overhauling. The process of selecting commissioners must be transparent and participatory, and commissions must ensure that the promotion of transparency is their sole focus.
    6. We want the Government of India to set up a National RTI Council (similar to the Central Employment Guarantee Council) which has, as members, people from various states, so that problems in implementing the RTI Act can be monitored regularly.
    7. Public private partnerships, the private sector, political parties, trade unions, NGOs, and cooperative societies are all under the purview of the RTI Act. Rules and procedures need to be defined to ensure that information from them can be easily accessed.
    8. Exemption given under Section 24 to security and intelligence agencies are irrational and contrary to national interest, and this needs to be removed – not by amendment of the Act but by withdrawing the list of notified agencies in the second schedule of the RTI Act.
    9. For those areas in North Eastern India, where there are no local governments (panchayati raj institutions), rules and procedures need to be defined to facilitate the access of local level information under the RTI Act.
    10. There must be transparency in religious institutions and about the use of public funds for religious purpose.
    11. All government expenditure must be subject to social/public audits.
    12. We stand by all the other resolutions passed by the various workshops.

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