Department of Journalism & Mass Communication Andhra University, Visakhapatnam-530 003
Online published on 5 July, 2012.
With the enactment of the Right to Information Act, 2005, the citizens as well as the media have been armed with a law in the country which compels the bureaucracy to disclose the necessary information, since, the bureaucracy hides the important aspects of the administrative information depriving the citizens the right to know. Further, the decision making process to implement the developmental schemes is kept in the dark by the government, and the common man can receive the developmental information only when it is revealed by the government or bureaucracy. Moreover, the press is expected to make the citizens well-informed, the freedom of the press that it enjoins makes it obligatory to be socially responsible. In this context, the present essay discusses the responsibility of the media in using the Right to Information act to accelerate the processes of development by exposing the wrong doing by the bureaucracy or the government by making the latter accountable to the people.
