The right to information in Karnataka

Charity begins at home, and so does volunteerism... In this spirit, this entry will profile the activities of my father-in-law, Mr. Ravindranath Guru. Appaji had decided to do only voluntary work post-retirement, and luckily or unluckily for him, he didn't have to go very far to find something to do. Two doors down from their house in Bangalore is located the 'Udupi Hall', which rents out space for marriages, parties etc. The traffic on 24^th Cross, BSK IInd stage is already high – the presence of the Udupi Hall means a parking nightmare, noise pollution and general nuisance to residents. Bangalore city's by-laws require commercial enterprises to provide parking facilities (generally in the basement of the premises) and Udupi Hall is in clear violation of this.

Using the Karnataka Right to Information Act (KRIA), Appaji's group, the Banashankari II Stage Welfare Association obtained drawings submitted by the owner to the BMP (Bangalore Mahanagara Palike, the municipal corporation). These drawings in no way reflect the actual layout of the Hall, which has two party rooms instead of the one proposed. With this and photographs of road congestion as proof, the Welfare Association has been following up with the Engineer, Chief Engineer and so on, all the way up to the Lokayukta.

The Lokayukta is a special office created by the Karnataka government to provide accountability in governance. The Lokayukta has judicial powers and can issue directives to officials who have been derelict in their duties. The current Lokayukta met with members of the Welfare Association and asked them to submit a complaint in writing, which he will follow up on.

Appaji is also keeping track of what is happening in the greater world of Right-to-Information. With him, I attended a meeting organized by KRIA Katte, an informal group that comes together to discuss various issues relating to KRIA. The issues discussed included advocacy for amendments to the Act to strengthen it. For example, in Maharashtra, officials who fail to provide information can be fined – in Thane district alone, Rs. 68000 has been collected as fines.Further, Parliament is discussing a Central RIA, whose impact on State Laws is yet to be understood.

Attendees shared their experiences. One old gentleman, a member of a group called Suprajaa, is trying to obtain property tax information for his ward to follow up on those who have not paid property taxes. Others have followed up on commercial properties which are often more egregious violaters. Yet another attendee obtained information on the number of licenses issued for hairdressers, medical shops etc in his neighborhood and began counting them on his morning walk. He found that only about a quarter of the businesses in his neighborhood were registered!

Attendees advised each other on how to best obtain information and debated vigorously on approaches to follow. Most appeared to be senior citizens. A few middle-aged and young people were present, including a lawyer from CHRI. But the preponderance of age in the room made a few people remark on how happy they were to see me, even though I was just visiting.

Last, but in no way the least, a note on my mother-in-law, Vinutha Guru. Along with monitoring Appaji's health (he's had heart surgery and is diabetic) as best as any mortal can and managing the household with military efficiency, she tutors indigent children. Currently, she is wading through fifth grade material with an eighth grader who attends an underfunded, substandard government school. Who is a tougher challenge for her – Appaji or the eight grader – I am yet to ascertain!

January 28th

People's communication, across nations and minds

After 2 days of spending time with family and taking it easy, I was ready to hit the road on Friday. First stop – PHM (People's Health Movement) office, located in Koramangala. This is 5-6 km from my in-laws' house and I decided to take public transport. (I haven't learnt to drive in India and don't think I want to, plus can't expect my in-laws to chauffeur me around!) Well, I got into the bus all right, but then foolishly thought the bus conductor would let me know when I had to get down. Inspite of two reminders, the guy coolly said, “Oh, your stop was 3 stops ago” when I asked him a third time! I miss Bombay bus conductors! I got down and encountered the second curse of Bangalore commuting – a one-way! Gave up trying to figure out where I was and took an auto. I reached the office half an hour late.

Prasanna Saligram was at the office – he's a senior AIDer and currently employed by the PHM. We have been talking on the phone a bit lately because AID Bangalore and CHC (Community Health Center), a sister organization of PHM, have been co-ordinating medical teams for the tsunami-affected areas. I am part of the supply team in the US, i.e. the group co-ordinating with people who want to volunteer for tsunami R&R (relief and rehabilitation). We've been having issues with a few volunteers who had high expectations and were aggrieved because their services were not needed as acutely as they assumed – a strange by-product of effective disaster mitigation!

At the PHM office, I met Dr. Ravi Narayan who is the head of the current global secretariat – the center that co-ordinates with health groups and movements worldwide, stores resource materials, articles etc. and maintains a disaster watch website. Every 2 years, timed with the convening of the PHA (People's Health Assembly), this office is supposed to move to a new country. For various reasons, the PHA that was supposed to be held last year was postponed to July 2005 and will be held in Ecuador. In the next few months, a huge amount of time and resources will be dedicated to this operation of compiling materials, converting them into electronic form if possible and moving them to Ecuador. Due to miscommunication between Prasanna and me, Ravi was under the impression that I would be spending two and a half months in Bangalore! In lieu of that, we will have to redefine the way, if any, I can contribute to their work.

Later, I met with Dr. Thelma Narayan at CHC – she has been directly responsible for the medical teams going to Tamilnadu. She has worked in the aftermath of a number of disasters in the past, starting in 1971 during the Bangladesh war. She mentioned a number of times that the overall response of the government in Tamilnadu was excellent. There have been some lapses and oversights, but as a whole, Collectors have been working extremely hard and are open to collaboration with groups. In previous disasters, she has found conflicts between NGOs and governments apathetic to people's viewpoints, and Tamilnadu has been been a welcome change.

In her opinion, there will continue to be a long-term need in the affected communities for psychosocial care, and volunteers who can stay there long-term. In the short term, the benefits of a volunteer's stay accrue mainly to the volunteer (her) himself. It is only in the long-term that a community can begin to feel the benefits of the volunteer's presence. She is highly sceptical of foreign groups that bring along 'trainers' and advises a strong dose of humility for every volunteer. The team she accompanied to Tamilnadu had to rapidly reassess their role and ended up doing very little real medical work.

An elegy to my back, on Bannerghetta road

I first thought of addressing this elegy to Bannerghetta road itself, but that would presuppose the existence of such a road. No one I've talked to can recall a better time. They all tell me to be happy, since the road is so much better than it was before – the thought boggles my imagination. It took a 'Rasta Roko' (road block) by IIM (Indian Institute of Managament) students to get some tar onto Bannerghetta – before that it only had potholes. The road connects a huge IT population to their workplaces, with the result that it is a morass during mornings and evenings. How are Bangaloreans, especially the International ones, tolerating this? Why haven't big IT companies threatened to leave Bangalore? No wait, they have! As if it were that easy... Later, I learn that the GREEN foundation and another organic group are both located on Bannerghetta road – hey, maybe this road is sustainable!!

India together?

The purpose of my trip to the Bangalore exurbs was to meet Ashwin Mahesh, the co-editor of India Together, and his wife Sapna, the breadwinner for their household. Ashwin has had the privilege of observing the functioning of groups like ASHA and AID since their inception. He and Subbu, his co-editor, have chosen a different (but no less important in my opinion) path for intervention. I wanted to discuss Ashwin's latest article about tsunami funding, where he hasn't endorsed any group, but recommends supporting those groups that pay a minimum wage. I ask him what the role of volunteerism is in such a scenario. He replies that volunteers are different from salaried employees – the former have other sources of income. But an NGO that pays its workers 800, 1200 rupees (the minimum wage is ~Rs. 2100) has deliberately chosen a regressive policy and is not morally different from a group that discriminates against Dalits. I ask him – what about those cases where the employee does have other sources of income, such as a farm or cattle. His response was that such income would be part of a living wage assessment and he had no problem with that. His grouse was with the argument that paying higher salaries would lead to discontent in the communities where the NGO works, that an NGO has to work with the money it has etc. I asked how a funding agency, even if it takes a stand on minimum wage, can ensure that a local group is paying minimum wage. His solution was that the local group would have to sign a declaration if it agrees to receive funding, and that it would have to make full disclosure to its employees about this declaration. It all sounds remarkably easy and yet... well, hopefully we can all critique this.

We also talked about monitoring funds collected for tsunami R&R and the difficulty inherent in tracking how money was used and where. Sapna's office, Servelots had a material collection drive. Materials were collected at the office and sent out to the field in trucks. Their first update from the field was that clothes were not required, but medicines were. By the time they responded to this, they had already collected more clothes than they required and no way of returning them to numerous anonymous donors. This and other constraints of a relief operation make collection and dissemination of effective information impossible, in Ashwin's opinion.

Finally, getting home – a city taxi to the rescue!

Introduction

Two years ago, I went to India for 6 weeks and maintained a blog (which shall go unnamed!). That was my first exploratory trip. Since then, I have learnt a lot more (or hope I have) about the issues that concern NGOs, co-operatives and people's movements in India. Some of the groups I will be visiting are:

• AID Bangalore
• Community Health Cell, Bangalore
• AID Chennai
  
• Volunteers from the TN Organic Farmers' network, including Revathi, an AID Saathi (work profiled here)
• Volunteers from ECCO (described here)
• Ritu Sogani's group in Uttaranchal
  
• Richa Singh and Sangtin in UP (profiled here)
  
• Vanangana and Madhavi Kuckreja (described here)
• Kalamandir in Jharkhand (described here)