GS4 · 10 marks · 150 words

What are the key objectives of the Right to Information Act, 2005? Examine the ethical concerns associated with certain provisions of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act in realizing the objectives of the RTI Act.

Answered by 7 toppers · CSE 2025

Transparency and InformationLaw and MoralityProbity in GovernanceAccountability and Ethical GovernanceEthical Dilemmas in Government

Syllabus: Probity in Governance: Concept of public service; Philosophical basis of governance and probity; Information sharing and transparency in government, Right to Information, Codes of Ethics, Codes of Conduct, Citizen’s Charters, Work culture, Quality of service delivery, Utilization of public funds, challenges of corruption.

How toppers approached it

From all 7 answers · about 130 words · 57% drew a diagram.

Opening

  • No separate opening57%
  • A quotation29%
  • A constitutional or legal provision14%

Body

  • Points71%
  • Points and prose29%

Close

  • A way forward86%
  • No separate close14%

The toppers’ answers

A R RajahAIR 7 · CSE 2025 · 147 wordsTheir whole copy

Opening

The Right to Information Act has been a watershed moment in the political history of Indian governance, serving as a tool for transparency.

Body · points and prose

Diagram
RTI Act, 2005 ↙ ↓ ↘ ↘ (1) Accountability (2) Transparency (3) Citizen-Centric (4) Ethical governance

Key Objectives (1) Ensuring transparency in the governance process. (2) Ensuring that citizens play a participatory role in governance. (3) Making employees of the Government to become accountable to the public. (4) Fostering of Public Trust among the citizens. (5) Ensuring people to act as fact checkers for lacunae in governance.

Ethical concerns:

The Digital Personal Data Protection Act has become a roadblock to the RTI implementation.

(1) Data has been classified to be 'private' and not available for public.

(2) [Reducing efficiency] of the RTI, resulting to no real-life positives.

(3) DPDP Act essentially shields the executive and legislature from public scrutiny.

Close · a way forward

Thus, the [RTI Act of 2005] has to be revamped with more importance given to modern day concerns like Data Protection.

More on Transparency and Information

Information sharing and transparency in government, the Right to Information, and the limits of disclosure.

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