On May 12, 2005, parliament passed the Right to Information Bill giving all Indians the right to ask their government for any information about its functioning, and expect to get a reply, without spending too much money or waiting too long. The bill includes central and state governments, panchayati raj institutions, local bodies and recipients of government grants. The new central law will apply to all states, which means that certain states that already had similar state laws -- like Maharashtra and Rajasthan -- will have to get rid of their own laws and adopt the central government one.

The law carries quite strict penalties for government departments and organisations if they do not give the required information, or even if they make it difficult to provide the information. Why is such a law necessary?

In a country like India that considers itself a democracy, the government is elected into power by its citizens. Once elected it is supposed to look after the best interests of the people who voted it into power. If it does not do this, the citizens can get rid of the government and elect a new one. Everything a government does is to benefit the people of the country, not the individuals who were elected.

But how can you be sure that the government is doing things to the best of its abilities? The decisions a government takes affect you; they are done on your behalf, and paid for by you by way of taxes. So you should have the right to ask the government how and why it is taking those decisions, and on what the decisions are based. This right is called the Right to Information.

The word usually used to show that political decisions are open to everyone and that the government is not hiding anything is called 'transparency'. One of the reasons we need transparency is because of 'accountability' -- meaning that when something goes wrong we know who is at fault and who wasn't doing his/her job properly. This is not about blaming people, it's a way to make people take responsibility for their actions and decisions, which is why we gave them the job in the first place. Right to information ensures that transparency and accountability exist in governments and government organisations. It means that we are allowed to ask questions of the government and expect answers, which, in turn, means we are taking part in governing our country.

Of course, it should not be just the rich that can ask questions; after all when a government does something it doesn't want anyone to know about it is usually for the benefit of the rich! Anyone should be able to ask questions, or else the right doesn't make sense. Because of this, any law that gives you the right to information has a part in it that says that everyone, rich and poor, has to pay the same small fixed amount of money if they want information from the government.

Another thing the law tries to do is make sure the question is answered within a certain timeframe, otherwise if the government doesn't want to give you information about something it can take months or even years to answer your question. This wouldn't be very useful to you. The law also makes it clear who you have to approach to get the information so no one can give you the runaround and pass the buck.

The sort of questions people ask a government are generally about corruption and inefficiency, where illegal decisions have been taken so someone makes money or gets power. Or when the government tries to hide something because it knows it has behaved badly. But the government can still deny you information if it is about the security of the country, like military secrets, or if you can use the information just to make money for yourself or get power that could harm other people. However, even in such cases the Right to Information Bill stipulates a certain time period (20 years) during which the information cannot be demanded. After that it becomes available to those who ask.