RTI Act demystified at Public Advocacy Workshop

MUSSOORIE, 18 Sept: Right to Information was today’s subject at the ongoing workshop on Public Advocacy organised by SEVA, Mussoorie, in association with ICIMOD, Nepal, at a hotel near Barlowganj.
The International Resource Person and the Director of NGO SOPHIYA, Praveen Kaushal, explained to the trainees the importance of the Right to Information as a Public Advocacy tool. The nuances of the RTI Act and the intricate details were explained to the trainees. Praveen Kaushal said that the RTI Act was the magic wand that could be used to bring in greater transparency and accountability. At the same time, he also informed the trainees that NGOs also came under the purview of the act and that they ought also be open to disclosing information.
In the next session on Tools and Techniques of Public Advocacy, International Resource Person Anmol Jain highlighted the importance of collaborative public advocacy and keeping confrontation as a last resort.
Yesterday, Praveen Kaushal had shed some light on networking with the media. He said the media was the Fourth Estate and without its assistance public advocacy could not be fruitful. He also said that under the RTI Act, the motive of the information seeker could not be questioned by any official.
Speaking on the role of the Media, invited guest Jaiprakash Uttarakhandi said Uttarakhand had been flooded with NGOs, many of them run by wives and relatives of bureaucrats. He lamented that the image of the NGO in the eye of the media was poor and could be improved only through transparency in their work ethics. He also said that most of the NGOs had become the stooges of the same system against which they were aligning for public advocacy.
He also said the government had become the biggest contractor and usurped land, water and jungle by unfair means and left the masses in despair. The NGOs ought to address these issues, then only would public advocacy have some meaning.
Another journalist Jabar Singh, said that working on real issues would affect the lives of the common man and automatically attract media attention. The focus ought to shift from project based to issue based Advocacy.
The journalists also trained the participants on correct methodology of preparing press releases and why it was important in Public Advocacy.
Tarun Joshi, another resource person discussed the issues of water, jungle, and land.
He also said that Uttarakhand was a state in which the new Forest Rights Act was not being implemented. He asked why villagers ought to part with their land for construction of schools, when the forest had so much land lying barren in its possession.
The workshop has generated interest among NGOs like People Endeavour for Social Change (PESCH) from Assam, as its found time to attend a short session. They were of the view that such programmes on Public Advocacy ought to be initiated nationwide for the uplift and awareness of the masses.