Right to Know

Common people have generally been denied access to basic information through successive governments. But the fight to guarantee the right to information was taken up by illiterate villagers in the state of Rajasthan.

Noted social activist Aruna Roy united the voice of these people under the organisation called the Empowerment of Workers and Peasants (MKSS) on May 1, 1990. She along with MKSS mastermind Nikhil Dey and Shankar Singh laid the foundation for a national RTI movement in India.

Other states also joined in and there were separate but simultaneous movement of a similar kind in Maharashtra and Meghalaya. All these combined with leading voices like that of bureaucrat-turned social activist Arvind Kejriwal bore fruit when the RTI Act came into being in 2005.

Administration today is more transparent, accessible and accountable to the common man than ever before. Any citizen of India can put in a request to see government files affecting his life.

Both Arvind Kejriwal and Aruna Roy were conferred with the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award for their contribution in strengthening the voice of common people who were hitherto unheard and unnoticed.