A National Level Convention for RTI Crusaders

A National Convention of RTI activists was held in Pune on 12,13th May 2007. Activists from 23 states in India participated. Bharat Uday Mission (BM) Pune members were present as volunteers to assist the organizers "Surajya Sangharsha Samiti, Pune", a group of RTI activists in Pune.

The convention was attended by well known personalities including: Aruna Roy, Arvind Kejriwal, Anna Hazare, Prashant Bhushan, Manish Sisodiya (parivartan), Medha Patkar. Phew, being with such people was quite an honour.

Following members from Pune participated as volunteers: Prerna, Ranjini, Rishikesh, Abhijeet R, Ashwin T, Dipendra, Pradnya K, Ketaki M, Abhijit K.

Members of BM Gwalior and BM Ujjain chapters were invited and Saurabh and Gaurav Bharat From those chapters represented BM.

Through this convention BM got good visibility among some of the activist groups like Parivartan, and among activists from various other states. We also showed our interest in helping the RTI activists all over India in making a database of all RTI activists.

Lot of BM members are already members of HumJanenge yahoogroup, which is the prime medium of communication for RTI activists. We can further use this group to update the RTI activists about : our experiences with the applications that we have filed, difficulties, solutions,
suggestions, etc. BM members can use the name of Bharat Uday Mission in their signatures to further give visibility to the mission.

The next RTI convention is planned in Ranchi in September and I believe that BM members from nearby areas will definitely participate.

I believe working in isolation is exremely inefficient, and we should be coordinating our activities with other activists in our states. "Ekta Mein Bal Hai", you see.