On October 5, Extentia hosted Vivek Velankar, a Right to Information (RTI) activist. He is the founder president of Sajag Nagarik Manch, Pune, that works on information associated issues. Since 2014, he writes a weekly column on career guidance in the Times of India and Pune Mirror. Additionally, Mr. Velankar runs a free RTI helpdesk every day – more than three thousand citizens have found this useful for their needs. His contributions to the social field have earned him several awards.

 

The amendment to the RTI Act, 2005, has given the public enormous power due to which Mr. Velankar kicked off the talk by addressing the audience as MPs and MLAs. Throughout his talk, he emphasized the importance of RTI and illustrated its benefits with live examples. The session ended with the audience putting forth problematic situations they face daily and, the speaker providing knowledgeable solutions. The essence of the talk was to know the truth and not to fight the system.