Linked with Arvind Kejriwal – India, and with PARIVARTAN, Fighting Corruption – India.
The Right to Information movement has grown and matured at a phenomenal pace with 9 states granting their citizens the right to access information from their respective state governments. With the passage of the Central Right to Information Act which is a very progressive Act India is working towards a more transparent, accountable and participatory system of governance. The Right to Information in India has been popularised by several significant initiatives of various citizen groups, individuals, grassroots movements and non-government organisation working in their own areas towards strengthening the Right to Information to change the face of Indian governance. These experiences are critical to influence and bring about a change in the relationship between the governed and those who govern, however, in order to influence change it is important that every citizen must participate in the process that facilitates and brings about the change. Kabir is a non-government organisation committed to the promotion and advancement of the Right to Information movement in India. Kabir intends to advocate the use of Right to Information by drawing on experiences from all over the country. By acting as a catalyst Kabir intends to promote the Right to Information through the medium of print, audio-visual media and personal communication.
Kabir is a non-government organization committed to the promotion of the Right to Information movement in India. Kabir believes that participatory governance is the essence of democracy and therefore sees itself as a natural extension of the right to information movement. The organization while serving as a vehicle for the dissemination and promotion of Right to Information will in reality also become an active arm of the movement in India. Kabir intends to promote and encourage the use of Right to Information through its communication/dissemination activities, it will also work towards becoming a resource centre for research and best practices in the field. Kabir aims at creating an environment and culture for transparency in governance, and for meaningful participation of the people in government works through facilitating and promoting use of Right to Information and other innovative methods being used by various groups. It intends to achieve this aim by playing the following roles:
- Communication initiative: Telling success stories of individuals and organisations to the rest of the country with the purpose of creating mass awareness and thereby replicating success stories on a mass scale. Kabir plans to translate the innovations and experiences of various groups using RTI and other methods for demanding transparency in governance, into a format, which could be used by user groups in places, which are in a low governance index region. Kabir also intends to use innovative and culture specific communication tools to reach out to those sections of the society, which have least access to the development. This would be the primary role of Kabir.
- Support role: To support various groups and individuals, working on right to information and those using other innovative methods to demand transparency. This would include providing them with dissemination material and strategies, networking, sharing of experiences and capacity building by holding workshops etc.
- Resource Centre: becoming a source for research and best practises in the field. This centre will also have all the data on right to information activities and other related developments across the country.
Distinguish with Kabir, an Indian mystic who preached an ideal of seeing all of humanity as one: See this on wikipedia.