Indian Polity Quiz: RTI, Citizens Charter & Anti – Corruption | 17 June, 2021

The right to information movement in India began with the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) movement to bring in transparency in village accounts through the demand for minimum wages in rural India.

False entries in wage rolls were a sign of increasing corruption in the system, which encouraged MKSS to demand official information recorded in government files.

Source: http://www.legalservicesindia.com/article/444/Right-To-Information.html

According to Thomas Jefferson “Information is the currency of democracy,” and critical to the emergence and development of a vibrant civil society.

Source: Governance in India by Laxmikanth

Section 12 (5) of the RTI Act states that the commissioners be selected from among “persons of eminence in public life with wide knowledge and experience in law, science and technology, social service, management, journalism, mass media or administration and governance.”

Source: https://www.thehindu.com/society/the-rti-act-has-been-systematically-assaulted-by-successive-governments-to-blunt-its-efficacy/.

Source: https://prsindia.org/billtrack/the-right-to-information-amendment-bill-2019 

Non-refoulement is a fundamental principle of international law.

It prohibits states from forcibly returning refugees to conditions that caused them to flee their homes in the first place, where they would be likely in danger of persecution based on race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.

Source: Press Information Bureau

India has been ranked very low at 76th place out of 82 countries on a new Social Mobility Index compiled by the World Economic Forum, while Denmark has topped the charts.

The report, released ahead of the 50th Annual Meeting of the WEF, also lists India among the five countries that stand to gain the most from a better social mobility score that seeks to measure parameters necessary for creating societies where every person has the same opportunity to fulfill his potential in life irrespective of socioeconomic background.

Source: https://www.thehindu.com/business/india-ranks-low-at-76th-place-on-global-social-mobility-index/

The Corruption Perceptions Index is released by the Transparency International annually.

• The latest edition is the Corruption Perceptions Index 2019 which was released in January 2020.
• The index includes the ranks of the 180 countries or territories based on the perceived levels of public sector corruption.

Source: The Hindu

Sevottam Model is a model proposed by 2nd ARC (Administrative Reforms Commission) for public Service Delivery.

• The word, Sevottam, is a combination of two Hindi words: ‘Seva’ (service) and ‘Uttam’ (excellence).
• Sevottam Model is now regarded as a standard model for providing services in citizen centric governance.

• The model is developed by rectifying the drawbacks in the earlier mechanisms of public service delivery like Citizen Charters (CC), and is gradually adopted by various departments under Central and State government.

Source: Laxmikanth

The task of coordination, formulation, and operationalization of citizen’s charters are done by the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG).

Source: Governance in India by Laxmikanth

Nine in 10 people are prejudiced against women, such as thinking university education is more important for men or that men deserve jobs more if work is scarce, the United Nations said. 

More than a quarter of men and women also think it is justified for a husband to beat his wife, found the Gender Social Norms Index by the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP), designed to measure how social beliefs obstruct gender equality. 

Source: The Hindu