Do you think that the Government of India is promoting the culture of secrecy by undermining the right to information act? Explain (200 Words)
Refer - The Indian Express
Enrich the answer from other sources, if the question demands.
IAS Parliament 4 years
KEY POINTS
· While transparency is a cornerstone of democracy, today’s India is cultivating secrecy. Paradoxically, this culture of secrecy is sometimes justified in the name of transparency.
· Electoral bonds also made it impossible to check whether a company was giving to parties more than what the Companies Act (2013) permitted, that is 7.5 per cent of the net average profit of the three preceding financial years.
· First, the government did not appoint a Chief Information Commissioner for a year after the incumbent retired in August 2014, and did not fill vacant information commissioner posts in the Central Information Commission (CIC) between 2016 and 2018, a year when, consequently, only seven commissioners out of the sanctioned strength of 11 were in place.
· Second, the government refused to disclose information which was previously available under the RTI Act. Queries about phone tapping are not responded to anymore.The RBI, for instance, refused to give any information about the decision-making process that led to demonetisation.
· The government also diluted the Whistleblower’s Protection Act. Whistleblowers can now be prosecuted for possessing the documents on which the complaint has been made.
· Similarly, the National Crime Records Bureau has been affected by delays (its 2017 report was released in October 2019) and deletions. For instance, lynchings and “religious killings” are no longer enumerated and the number of members of religious communities in the police forces (information that had been introduced by the Vajpayee government) is not listed.
· The National Sample Survey Office has also not been spared. In 2019, nearly 200 scholars wrote to the government to release the 75th round survey of consumer expenditures — which had found that the percentage of citizens living below the poverty line had increased between 2011-12 and 2017-18.
· Transparency is not only necessary for maintaining a democratic polity, it is also necessary for making the economy work. Facts are sometimes unpleasant, but the nation needs to know — and may be wants to know, even if nobody is asking any more.
