scholarly journals Fifteen Years of Right to Information Act in India: A Long Way to Go

2021 ◽  
pp. 346-362
Author(s):  
Pushpraj Singh

The passing & enactment of Right to Information Act, 2005 in India has been rightly considered as a milestone in the evolution of Indian Parliamentary Democracy which attempted to ensure transparency & good governance at the grass root levels by making the public authorities accountable & responsible. This Act liberated the harassed commoners who now had a very potent weapon to seek information which had hitherto remained suppressed in the dusty files of Babus (Bureaucrats) under the garb of official secrecy & confidentiality. However, in spite of many initial success stories over a period of time this Right to Information act has been losing its effectiveness & potency as it has failed to adopt the dynamism of complex Socio-Political realities. This paper attempts to give an overview & explain the history of RTI in India, its present status, limitations/drawbacks /challenges & and suggests some remedial measures to ensure its relevance in the rapidly transforming geo political context.

Author(s):  
_______ Naveen ◽  
_____ Priti

The Right to Information Act 2005 was passed by the UPA (United Progressive Alliance) Government with a sense of pride. It flaunted the Act as a milestone in India’s democratic journey. It is five years since the RTI was passed; the performance on the implementation frontis far from perfect. Consequently, the impact on the attitude, mindset and behaviour patterns of the public authorities and the people is not as it was expected to be. Most of the people are still not aware of their newly acquired power. Among those who are aware, a major chunk either does not know how to wield it or lacks the guts and gumption to invoke the RTI. A little more stimulation by the Government, NGOs and other enlightened and empowered citizens can augment the benefits of this Act manifold. RTI will help not only in mitigating corruption in public life but also in alleviating poverty- the two monstrous maladies of India.


Author(s):  
AnasGhassan Kanaan ◽  
Shahizan Bin Hassan

This paper presents a study which examines several e-government success factors in Jordan. Due to the pace of globalization and rapid global growth of technology and the Internet information, many governments around the world have turned their services from traditional services into e-government services. Were the citizens, business organizations and other stakeholders are served via the internet. Jordan is one of the rare countries in the Middle East with a history of commitment to good governance and ICT-related initiatives. In recent years, Jordan’s efforts to provide e-government services to the public have been recognized. But still Jordan faces the problem of low usage levels of these electronic services, plus several scholars addressed that several studies were conducted from citizen perspective but few for businesses perspective. For a better understanding of e-government and its influence on the society as all and on the business society in particular the researchers carried out this study to identify the success factors which affect e-government adoption in Jordan, also to investigate the factors that determine business organization satisfaction towards e-government in Jordan. In this paper the researcher will discuss four factors that affect the success of e-government services from businesses perspective in Jordan as followed: e-service quality, perceived usefulness, trust, personalization.


2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 209-216
Author(s):  
Valerii Bakumenko ◽  
Oleksiy Krasnorutskyy ◽  
Anatolii Hatsko

The modernization of the management system and the knowledge management model is needed in the context of the public administration reform, taking into account the concept of decentralization and Good Governance. That is why the article focuses on the author’s approach to substantiating the formation of a modern knowledge system in public management and administration in Ukraine. It is proved that the approach to the knowledge system formation should be based on the identification of the needs of public administration objects. The need to comply with the necessary diversity law for a management subject of public entity regarding its knowledge of the entity has been identified. The content of the principle «from general to specific» for the objects of public administration is considered. The formation structure of the basic knowledge system in the public sphere is presented, which unites a number of blocks. The first block deals with the system of basic knowledge of public management and administration. The second block deals with the idea of a public authorities system at different levels. The third block concerns the formation of basic knowledge about public service. The fourth block concerns the formation of a basic knowledge system about current trends in the development of domestic public administration. The fifth block deals with the knowledge about the development and implementation of public policy and implementation of public administration. The sixth block deals with the consideration of public administration as a deliberate activity to establish internal procedures and processes in public administration to ensure their smooth functioning. The seventh block concerns the knowledge system for ensuring social stability. The eighth block is a glossary of basic terms and the ninth is a bibliography. The proposed approach is the scientific substantiation of the development of educational and professional programs of the basic textbook and standards for the specialty 281 – «Public Management and Administration». Keywords: knowledge, public administration, the necessary diversity law, public policy, public service, public authorities, public stability.


Author(s):  
Kuldeep Mathur

This chapter examines administrative accountability through the democratic pillar of public transparency. One of the pillars of democratic accountability is the availability of adequate information in the public domain about the functioning government. It has taken a social movement for transparency in government to establish people’s right to information through the passage of the Right to Information Act in 2005. However, traditional administration has not reconciled to its demands and PPPs are kept out of its purview on the plea that they are not public authorities. The Lok Pal (ombudsman) Bill has been passed in response to another struggle of civil society.


Author(s):  
Evgeniy Romanenko

In the paper carried out the analysis of e-government as a means of interactive and communicative interaction of public authorities and the public allowed to identify it as a self-organizational tools for effective public-management decisions, to ensure transparency mechanisms for monitoring their implementation. Analyzed the history of creation and international documents that contain recommendations, the requirements for States parties that intend to build or develop at an effective information society. It is shown that the rate of introduction of E-governance in Ukraine is considerably lagging behind the leading countries of the world.


Chapter 4 considers the administrative structure created by the Freedom of Information Act 2000; the right to information itself; the public authorities that are subject to the right; and the way in which requests for information should be handled. The chapter addresses the form of the request; the definition of ‘information’; the problems that tribunals have had in deciding whether information is held by a public authority; time limits; the transfer of requests from one authority to another; the duty to provide advice and assistance; fees and costs; vexatious and repeated requests; and the notice which has to be given when a request is refused. The chapter then considers the automatic disclosure of information through publication schemes, the need for consultation with third parties, and record management.


2021 ◽  
pp. 9-14
Author(s):  
Alla IVANOVSKA ◽  
Olena HALUS ◽  
Iryna RYZHUK

It is found that the right to information about the activities of public authorities is linked to the more general constitutional right of everyone to freely collect, store and disseminate information in any lawful manner. The analyzed law is subject to international and domestic rules governing the right of access to information in general. At the same time, this right is regulated in great detail by special regulations that establish additional guarantees. An important guarantee that ensures the realization of the right of citizens to information about the activities of public authorities is the principle of transparency, which applies in many democracies around the world. The principle of transparency is manifested, firstly, in the fact that public authorities are obliged to inform the public about their activities, and secondly, every member of society has the appropriate right to receive such information, and the level of access to information about activities of public authorities is very important. Forms of exercising the right to information about the activities of public authorities, taking into account the peculiarities of legal regulation, are divided into passive and active. The passive form presupposes that the citizen himself gets acquainted with the information about the activity of the public authority, which duty is to make it public. An active form of exercising this right involves direct appeals of citizens or their groups to public authorities with requests to provide relevant information. It is concluded that ensuring the exercise of the right to information about the activities of public authorities is the key to building a democratic state governed by the rule of law and relies on public authorities, which are obliged to create all conditions for public participation in the adoption of legal acts by these bodies and to provide adequate access to complete and objective information about their activities.


This paper examines the challenges facing PA education, considering the colonial heritage of the region. Over the past decade, researchers have paid attention to Public Administration (PA) and its education in the Middle East. Many explored the history of the PA in the region and the quality of PA programs within high education institutes. In the context of the developmental challenges that face the current generation in the region, and under the current political circumstances which have negative consequences on PA, many voices call for a reliable and high-quality PA education and good governance, which includes accountability, transparency, democracy, and other concepts related to bureaucratic machinery within the public institutions. There is therefore a need to examine what governmental institutions, together with academic institutions in the Arab States, are doing to make significant progress in this field. The paper examines the main challenges facing PA education in Arab countries.


2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 5-6
Author(s):  
Silviu-Marian Miloiu

The current volume (8, issue 2 of 2016) of Revista Română pentru Studii Baltice şi Nordice / The Romanian Journal for Baltic and Nordic Studies (RRSBN) publishes mostly the papers presented at the Seventh International Conference on Baltic and Nordic Studies in Romania, Good governance in Romania and the Nordic and Baltic countries, hosted by the Romanian Association for Baltic and Nordic Studies and Nicolae Iorga Institute of History of the Romanian Academy, București, 24-25 November, 2016, with the support of the embassies of Finland, Latvia, Lithuania and Norway, the Consulate of Latvia to Bucharest and sponsored by Niro Investment Group. The meeting focused on good governance in Romania and the Nordic and Baltic countries as seen from a variety of angles and from the perspective of various disciplines, institutions and practices related to accountability, transparency, the rule of law, responsibility, equity, inclusiveness, participation, efficiency, human rights protection, tangible, intangible and natural heritage conservation, etc. The conference tackled concepts, issues and good practices in terms of good governance, accountability, welfare, efficiency, gender equality in the public and private sectors in Scandinavia, the Baltic States and Romania as well as the institutions called upon to fight against corruption in these countries. Historical examples of good versus bad governance were also brought forth.


Author(s):  
Monica Teresa Sousa ◽  
Leonardo Valles Bento

Right to information means the right of citizens to have access to information produced by, or held by, public/governmental agencies. This chapter intends to analyze the legal grounds of the right to access to information in Brazil as compared to the best international practice. One of the main risks to good governance and democracy is the use of public resources for private purposes, and the development of new communication technologies, especially the Internet, has revolutionized the manner in which the public interacts with the information available, impacting democratic practices. In November 2011, the adoption of Federal Law 12,527 made Brazil the 89th country in the world, and the 19th in Latin America, to adopt specific legislation implementing the right to access to public information. In Brazil, public authorities, especially the courts, tend to accept easily the allegations of violation of privacy and defamation of those whose interests are harmed or threatened by the broadcasting of information. In the conflict between access to information and private interests, the latter has prevailed. In this context, the Access to Information Law has become a relevant policy to the Brazilian civil society to strengthen and consolidate a democratic political culture and promote institutional maturity.


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