TNN, Jan 26, 2011, 03.49am IST
JAIPUR: Never mind that the debaters themselves wanted modification in the motion, when put to vote there were few opposing "Society has the total right to know: freedom of information must be unrestrained" here at the Front Lawns of the Diggi Palace.
Presented by Intelligence Squared, Asia, as finale to the Jaipur Literature Festival, the debate opened with activists Aruna Roy speaking to an already convinced crowd and drawing a distinction between "total" and "public information."
"Servants are liable to answer to their masters. And, therefore, the government must not hold back any public information that might have social, educational or other impact on the public. For the poor, the right to information is like the right to life. But I am not sure if this should be total' for we are not concerned with private information," said Roy as she begun the debate. She stressed her reservation on "information going the other way via Unique Identification Number (UID)."
Citing the Wikileaks example, journalist and author Jayashree Mishra felt information cannot be absolute. "The right to information should come along with due responsibility. That should not be used in a wrong way," she felt.
Criticising proposed amendments to the RTI Act, author Ashok Vajpayee felt the Raj' has always done its bit to curb the flow of information and the amendments were again a bid to do that. "If the government has the right to know then we also have the right to know what it is doing," he said.
The next two speakers against and for the topic novelist Abha Dawesar and journalist Tarun Tejpal too put in their views, respectively. Abha felt that information in this age can be used to pre-determine if a person is criminal and put him to test, Tejpal put forth examples of the Adarsh Society scam or that of the luxurious foreign jaunts of the UPA ministers as the good that the RTI has brought forth.
The change in the debate came next when journalist Swapan Dasgupta read out the motion and underlined the debate was not on the RTI Act but on one's total right to know.
"It seems that speakers for the motion have cleverly shifted the goal post. Citing an example on the benefit of holding back some information, Dasgupta recalled that few years ago a border security guard caught a terrorist, a fact his bosses wanted him to keep secret.
"It was that the terrorist was to reveal a wider terrorism network but by then the guard had already broken the news. So it is sometimes due to a larger gain that we must hold back information. We must be able to differentiate between secrecy and information," he felt.
But his logic failed to hold good amid the crowd and the motion was carried.
Read more: Unrestrained freedom of information favoured - The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/jaipur/Unrestrained-freedom-of-information-favoured/articleshow/7363549.cms#ixzz1C8fcIa00
Presented by Intelligence Squared, Asia, as finale to the Jaipur Literature Festival, the debate opened with activists Aruna Roy speaking to an already convinced crowd and drawing a distinction between "total" and "public information."
"Servants are liable to answer to their masters. And, therefore, the government must not hold back any public information that might have social, educational or other impact on the public. For the poor, the right to information is like the right to life. But I am not sure if this should be total' for we are not concerned with private information," said Roy as she begun the debate. She stressed her reservation on "information going the other way via Unique Identification Number (UID)."
Citing the Wikileaks example, journalist and author Jayashree Mishra felt information cannot be absolute. "The right to information should come along with due responsibility. That should not be used in a wrong way," she felt.
Criticising proposed amendments to the RTI Act, author Ashok Vajpayee felt the Raj' has always done its bit to curb the flow of information and the amendments were again a bid to do that. "If the government has the right to know then we also have the right to know what it is doing," he said.
The next two speakers against and for the topic novelist Abha Dawesar and journalist Tarun Tejpal too put in their views, respectively. Abha felt that information in this age can be used to pre-determine if a person is criminal and put him to test, Tejpal put forth examples of the Adarsh Society scam or that of the luxurious foreign jaunts of the UPA ministers as the good that the RTI has brought forth.
The change in the debate came next when journalist Swapan Dasgupta read out the motion and underlined the debate was not on the RTI Act but on one's total right to know.
"It seems that speakers for the motion have cleverly shifted the goal post. Citing an example on the benefit of holding back some information, Dasgupta recalled that few years ago a border security guard caught a terrorist, a fact his bosses wanted him to keep secret.
"It was that the terrorist was to reveal a wider terrorism network but by then the guard had already broken the news. So it is sometimes due to a larger gain that we must hold back information. We must be able to differentiate between secrecy and information," he felt.
But his logic failed to hold good amid the crowd and the motion was carried.
Read more: Unrestrained freedom of information favoured - The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/jaipur/Unrestrained-freedom-of-information-favoured/articleshow/7363549.cms#ixzz1C8fcIa00
