CNS: Youth use RTI on tobacco control and other development schemes

[RTI applications] [हिन्दी] The Lucknow youth participants of the ongoing Rights and Responsibilities Summer Training Camp at Professor (Dr) Rama Kant’s Centre in C-block crossing, Indira Nagar, filed applications under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005, demanding information pertaining to poor implementation of development programmes in the city including tobacco control. The youth, Ankur Verma, Diya Pandey, Sanjay Kumar Verma, Shikha Srivastava, Shikhar Agarwal, Shubham Dwivedi, and Udita Chandra, filed many RTI applications on tobacco control and other development schemes.

The youth used RTI to ask why tobacco retail shops exist within 100 yards of educational institutions, why smokers violating smoke-free law (ban on smoking in public places) are not fined, what is the expenditure UP government has made in treating tobacco related life-threatening diseases, why garbage is piling up in residential colonies, why polythene is lying recklessly in Cantonment area where polythene is banned, power shortage or regular power breakdown in Indira Nagar localities, petrol price hike, child labour, stray animals, shelter home for stray animals, and other such civic concerns.

Magsaysay Awardee and senior social activist Dr Sandeep Pandey had earlier convened a session on RTI training the youth on using RTI to fight corruption, increase accountability, and to improve implementation of laws in the country.

In the ongoing Rights and Responsibilities Summer Training Camp, 14 Lucknow youth are participating from different educational institutions including City Montessori School, Jigar Memorial Inter College, Bhaatkhande University, Awadh University, and Lucknow University.

Many distinguished experts from Lucknow are the faculty members for this training such as Professor (Dr) Gourdas Choudhuri, Head of Gastroenterology, Sanjay Gandhi Post-Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (SGPGIMS), Professor (Dr) Rama Kant, former Head of Surgery, CSM Medical University and President, Association of Surgeons of India, Dr Sandeep Pandey, Magsaysay Awardee 2002, Dr Shivani Sharma, Chief Dental Surgeon at Sector 10 Indira Nagar’s ‘One Stop Smile Shop’, Shobha Shukla, former senior faculty, Loreto Convent and Managing Editor CNS, Manu Shresth Mishra, UP High Court Lawyer, Vote for Health campaign coordinator Rahul Dwivedi; Biju Mohan, Deputy Director, Jahangirabad Media Institute (JMI), Bobby Ramakant among others.