** *New Delhi:* A senior bureaucrat in the Government of India has publicly taken issue with the National RTI Awards selection scheme on various internet fora. Assailing the competence of the Ghaziabad based Public Causes Research Foundation to assess and analyse the decisions of various Information Commissions constituted under India's Right to Information Act.
Ashish Kumar, a former RTI First Appellate Officer, author and authority on RTI Act, now posted at New Delhi, has ridiculed the persons Magsaysay awardee Arvind Kejriwal appointed to assess over 51,000 CIC orders and about 8,000 feedback forms. Ashish Kumar has publicly challenged Arvind Kejriwal to explain why his inexperienced employees, with backgrounds as diverse as "salesperson in chemist shop", "personal loans executive in finance compnay", "outdoor activity in National Cadet Corp", and "handling a RTI helpline" are "qualified to be sitting in judgment over eminent persons selected as Information Commissioners". Emails sent to Arvind Kejriwal Trustee of PCRF remain unanswered on these and other questions raised by Ashish Kumar. The analysis of these 60,000 decisions were sent to an eminent jury which included Dr. Prannoy Roy of NDTV, film actor Aamir Khan, and Narayana Moorthy of Infosys, to select India's best Information Commissioner last year. Several Information Commissioners had also publicly ridiculed the scientific accuracy of the selection process for these awards with the Central Information Commission issuing a directive that their Commissioners would not participate in the awards process. http://www.mynews.in/News/RTI_Awards_credibiity_questioned_N68650.html
