Daijiworld News Network – Mangalore (VM)

Mangalore, Jul 31: A workshop on the Right to Information Act (RTI) was arranged under the auspices of DK Police on Sunday, Jul 30 exclusively for the people belonging to the SC/ST communities at the conference hall of Police Guest House.

DK Superintendent of Police B Dayananda in his introductory remarks highlighted that the workshop has been arranged for the benefit of SC/ST people of the district so as to empower them to get their works done from various departments. He opined that the use of the RTI by the people will help in reducing corruption in government offices and it will also ensure greater transparency and accountability in the functioning of various departments of the government.

Ashok and Pramila the two resource persons from Prajna Samiti later conducted the workshop in three sessions. The first session was on the "Origin of Right to Information," in which an attempt was made to trace the evolution of right for information in the global context.

The second session covered the explaining of various provisions of the Right to Information Act-2005. While the third session offered hands on experience on "How to apply for desired information". In this the actual application forms were distributed to all participants and step by step instructions on how to fill up the application were given.

About 100 persons participated in this workshop. While most of these were members of various Dalith organizations there were also some government officers, police officers and journalists.

The workshop generated lot of discussion between participants and resource persons. The workshop went on for 3 hours from 11.15 to 1.15 pm.