1 Hour A Week (iHawk)

All of us, at some point or another have despaired over the state of things around us. Most times we blame our government, but sometimes we have pretty useful suggestions on how to rectify these things. But due to Lack of Trust, Time or Initiative we let those ideas slip away. And then after a while, we find ourselves complaining about the very same things again.

It might seem that there is nothing we can really do, but there has got to be a way out of this!!. There is infact a way out - Right To Information Act (October 12, 2005)!!. We can use it, ask the right questions and get our Government to do what it has been hired for. It is a start, a Great Start. Its a medium for evaluating our government and exposing its short-comings. Very Powerful !!

Let us All Spend An Hour A Week, finding ways to use RTI to help the community improve and benifit from it. Click here for information on what you can do.

The Right to Information Act - Fixing the Limiting Ingredient

Tired Of

Rains Messing With Roads, Broken Roads, No Roads,
Leaking Water Pipelines, Garbage all over the Layout,
Applications taking forever, Bribes for Everything

Wanna Get the Good Life you Deserve?

Yeah? Then lets get the government to do what it is hired for. How?

Use the Latest GUN in the Market. Be a BULL !!

Use The Right to Information Act

Ask why a Road was not fixed, why Streets Lights not working

Ask for Names of the Officers Responsible, Daily Progress of Pending Applications

Ask the Government About Anything that needs Fixing
And they Will Fix it !!
Why, You Ask?

Cos theres a Rs.250/day fine for not providing information within 30 days
And they cannot answer in the negative and admit guilt

Its So Simple Your KID Could Use RTI

Write a Letter with Queries
Send to Public Information Officer of the Govt Office

For the Full Text, Primer, Handbook, Sample RTI Applications, Success Stories, Trouble Getting or Using Information, What you cannot ask:

1. nyayabhoomi.org/rti
2. rti.gov.in/
3. righttoinformation.info/
4. parivartan.com/rti.asp
5. indiarti.blogspot.com/

Yahoo Groups:

1. kria
2. humjanenge

Remember: If you Are Not Part of the Solution, You Are Part of the Problem

Evaluation of All Work is Essential, Including Our Governments'

In many companies, managers evaluate their employees at regular intervals. The purpose of this evaluation is manyfold - improve performance, stream-line efforts etc. The main idea though is to ensure that work is actually getting done. Similarly, employees in turn get a chance to evaluate their managers. Again, the idea is the same - ensure that the managers are doing their job right. Without these checks it would be hard to keep teams productive.

Now consider this - we hire our governments by virtue of paying taxes. Therefore, it is our duty to evaluate governments to ensure the system works. Taking part in elections cannot be considered evaluation for the sake of improvement. Elections are just too far apart. Elections cannot force governments to do the things we want them to do. We need to get involved in a continuous process of evaluation of our governments. It is important that governments get regular, even constant feedback so they know, they need to keep improving.

I haven't met anyone in India who is happy with the way things are. Hence it is especially important for all of us to raise our voices and be heard. The state of things can only get worse if we choose to keep valuable feedback to ourselves. How can we do this without getting pained by it? Its easy now.

The Limiting Ingredient - Our Government

It is not possible to keep tabs on all the ingredients of our lives. There's just too many. But it is vital that we are aware of the ingredients that have gone bad. Fixing them should be our highest priority, else these become the factors that limit our ability to thrive. Here in India, I see our government as the limiting ingredient for all of us. I believe that it will be really hard for us to thrive collectively in our country unless, our governments begin to do what they have been hired for.

Consider for example, your daily commute to work: Whether you live close to or far away from work, your travel time has only gotten worse in the last 10 years. Perhaps that was expected. But, 30 minutes for a silly distance of 5 kms. Thats Insane !! And its not a peaceful 30 minutes either. Its 30 minutes of gruelling traffic and utter chaos. Its just that somehow things move and get done and we adjust to it. But, imagine the Time and Money that gets Wasted because of the pathetic infrastructure in our country. Any trip, anywhere, takes longer than it ought to. And its not just traffic or roads, we see pathetic conditions just about everywhere we look. Life was not supposed to be this hard !!

Its important that we remember that - "We hire our Governments. Our Governments are on contract to us." Hence, We are the Boss, right? Its obvious its not working that way. But it ought to. The one ingredient of our lives that perhaps affects us the most, is sadly the limiting one !! It is the limiting ingredients that will hold us back the most. This limiting ingredient is already biting into our ability to thrive. We can look away and go earn our bread and entertainment, but if we don't put a check on our government now, it will swallow all of us.