We must have the Right to Information as a Fundamental Right

Man let it be said, does not have a habit or necessity of accumulating day to day information consciously. He lives in a society, sometimes tied to a friendly relationship with the neighbors and sometimes indifferent to the surroundings and receives different kinds of information generally casually.They attempt to educate us rightly and they want also to confuse us and they leave us to live in peace and also cause disruption in our life when we are in peace. They want to control what we like and dislike and insist on us to accept their explanation or reading on our life-style and exert pressure on us to accept their prescription of a life-style.

Our role in spreading or supplying information is not worth-mentioning. We do not advertise ourselves generally. Still the way we tell a little thing of ourselves is enough to be understood that we are not active or we do not have some purpose. Suppose I belong to the ordinary middle class. One day one of my neighbors may notice some beautiful red roses on my terrace. He will be sure that I have love for flowers. This way if a girl is found to be in the practice of Tagore’s songs daily in the early morning it will be clear that the girl and her family are interested in music. In both the cases some information is spread but there is no motive behind it. Likewise, one day a man we may find lying dead beneath a railway bridge and it should be taken as granted that the man who has rested there because of his immature death on account of sheer starvation has nothing to propagate.

It is an accepted fact that we have been living in an age of information technology. We must also accept that our world has become almost like a vast village thanks to the great progress in this sphere. It is now said that because of this progress different countries have been moving very fast on their way to development. We do not have a little bit of doubt on the strength of information. Who will dare challenge that the epics of the Mahabharata or the Iliad could has been composed by the great ancient bards without an assembly of enormous and necessary information ? Again, persons who had planned and built up one Tazmahal in India or one Eiffel Tower in France must have been equipped with required qualitative and quantitative information.

We beg again to submit that the man, that ordinary starved man is found to be lying dead beneath the railway bridge. This also provides some information and the concerned man has not taken any effort to tell us. On the other hand, if anybody thinks to campaign something he holds some purpose. Again purposes of different people are not same or uniform generally. In the channels of the television a great number of advertisements are displayed during all commercial programs. The very purpose of them is to earn more profit by making the viewers interested in purchasing the advertised goods. Advertisements are instruments to spread certain and specific information and they are made such attractive that the viewers will take less time to turn themselves as buyers and may pay little attention to the quality and limitation of the products and yes, pay little attention even to the fact that the substances they have been purchasing may or may not be a real necessity. These efforts on behalf of the companies are sufficient to confuse the customers. Medicines may also be taken for examples. In the third world countries a large number of medicines are sold to and consumed by the comparatively ignorant patients although the larger portion of such medicines are either internationally banned or not at all required for the particular diseases. Several responsible physicians prescribe them and the chemists sell them and finally damage in one form or in the other is shared by the patients.

The strength of information depends on certain factors that mainly include nature and purpose of the agents that provide this.This also depends on the position and preparation of the receivers of the information. A society which has greater number of really conscious people will get benefited by the flow of information. A good number of states likes to hide many information to the people under one plea or other. Hence the demand for the right to information has emerged as something urgent in many countries. In some countries this right has been granted after many a movements of the people concerned and still the states are not interested to be open to all on different issues. There is little doubt in the idea that a vibrant society must have the right to information as one the fundamental rights.Under this perspective we are to consider that September 28 has already been fixed as the Right to Know Day.