[Reader-list] Freedom of Information scam

[Ravi Sundaram]

Do check this out. It will blow your mind. From a watered down consumer
rights bill, this new draft legilsation effectively gives the state the
legal right to block information in every possible sphere.

-ravi



All-party panel makes cosmetic changes to information bill 
 
THE TIMES OF INDIA NEWS SERVICE  Friday 27th March.
 
EW DELHI: There is an all-party consensus on limiting citizens' right to
information as much as possible. This is evident from the parliamentary
standing committee's clearance of the ironically named `Freedom of
Information Bill, 2000.'

The proposed legislation is extremely protective of state secrecy and the
all-party panel cleared it with just mild recommendations to liberalise the
provisions.


Sections of the bill that have been cleared without any reservations
include section eight which forbids any disclosure of any information that
might affect India's sovereignty, integrity, security, scientific or
economic interest, conduct of international relations, Union-state
relations, internal file notings of ministers or officials and suchlike.

Section nine empowers a disclosure officer to reject any request if the
information sought involves a ``disproportionate diversion of the resources
of a public authority''. The committee just replaced the word
``disproportionate'' with ``unreasonable'' and cleared this section.


There are other such minor changes to the bill suggested by the all-party
panel. Effectively, it has cleared a bill which empowers the state keeping
anything it wants under wraps in, ironically, the name of Freedom of
Information.


Votories of citizens' rights from the Left and the left-of-centre parties
and persons such as LM Singhvi and Kuldip Nayar were on the panel. Other
signatories to the report include panel chairman Pranab Mukherjee,
Sanghpriya Gautam, C.M.Ibrahim, Joyasree Mahanta, Hansraj Bharadwaj,
N.Janardhana Reddy, Beni Prasad Verma and Raghuvansh Prasad Singh.


The bill was referred to the 45-member panel (30 from the Lok Sabha and 15
from the Rajya Sabha) last September (it was tabled in the Lok Sabha two
months before that) for scrutiny. Their let-it-pass report has been now
tabled in both houses.


A number of influential figures had officially lobbied with the panel to
considerably liberalise the bill ^ Madhav Godbole, A.G.Noorani and Manubhai
Shah from the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, as also ex-cabinet
secretary B.G.Deshmukh, Press Council of India chief P.B.Sawant and heads
of Rajasthan's Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan, who've waged a relentless
grassroots campaign on the issue there. 


This has had some effect; the committee report says it feels ``many of the
important suggestions of the (above) experts/organisations have not been
covered in the Bill..(we), therefore, recommend that the government
consider these views..and incorporate them in the Bill to make it
comprehensive."