The Brave Pedestrian

  1) A good RTI application as boring as a laundry list. It is a bare list of items of information WITHOUT ANY reasoning. If the first draft of RTI application is interesting to read, something is wrong. Make corrections by deleting the interesting material, such as logical threads of reasoning and justification. You must focus on how to draft an RTI application that DOES NOT disclose the overall nature of the problem in your mind. It must not give a glimpse of what you intend to do with the requested information e.g. register police complaints, approach investigating agencies, file a PIL etc. Also, your RTI application must not indicate how badly you want the information, and therefore, please don’t mention anything such as “I am a senior citizen dependent on my pension cheques, and I have been pushed from pillar-to-post in search of this information.” When you write an RTI application, you must try to gain only information, and not sympathy, respect etc. ...

28 March 2016: An activist friend named Abbaas Naqvi (9892000098) wrote in October 2012 about BMC's modus operandi of defending illegal constructions. Abbaas wrote from his experiences in Malad P-North Ward of BMC/MCGM, where he and other activists (such as Shahnawaz Shaikh 9867768070) were trying to get municipal officials to take action against illegal constructions (especially TV studios) sprouting in the area. Activists are fighting an uphill battle against BMC officials who take undue advantage of their official position. People are losing hope because authorities take no action against errant officials, even when written complaints and evidences are submitted. Civic officials are defeating the town planning by abetting illegal constructions violating Development Control Regulations. No-Development zones are goldmines for officers dealing with unauthorized construction. Below, I am reproducing Abbaas‘ writings. As I am convinced that this is largely factual, I take full ...

3 July, 2015: "BUS KYA, DATTU? DAWA-DAARU ke liye public se paise leneka, lekin public ko hisaab nahin  denaka. Tum judge-log bhi na... " That's what the man-on-the-street will be saying today. Many of CJI Dattu's brother-judges in High Court and Supreme Court are presenting INFLATED OR COOKED-UP MEDICAL BILLS for getting reimbursement from taxpayers' money. Surely he knows this? It's an open secret. And that's really why the Supreme Court bench presided over by Chief Justice H L Dattu yesterday rejected a plea for disclosing medical expenditures of judges and their family under RTI. “There should be some respect for privacy and if such information (is) disclosed, there will be no stopping,” the bench told advocate Prashant Bhushan. Prashant Bhushan, representing RTI activist Subhash Chandra Agrawal, argued that the public felt that judiciary was not willing to follow the standards of transparency and accountability that it expects from other autho...