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A Look at RTIDirectory.in. A Great Initiative but We Lend Some Feedback
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This is a post by Abhinandan Nardekar – a student at BITS Pilani
RTI activists now have something to cheer about. On May 31st RTI activist Shailesh Gandhi launched the website www.rtidirectory.in designed by civic activist Rishi Aggarwaal
The site allows people to upload their initial grievances and the response they got from the concerned Government authority. It also allows users to comment on these cases with an aim of stimulating a discussion on them and thereby helping to chart a future course of action.
As soon as you log into the site, you come across links to recent successfully completed RTI cases. Besides one can also browse through the rest of the not so recent cases by clicking on the ‘Browse’ link where a brief description of each of the cases is given. Also a list of keywords is provided to classify each of the cases according to their respective categories. In order to provide a smoother and a better experience while searching for cases, a search engine has been provided although it provides satisfactory results only when the keywords mentioned before each of the cases are used.
The driving force for the creation of this website has been mentioned as reduction in duplication of time of cases and thereby saving on the highly invaluable resources - Time and Money. In addition to that, they also intend to disseminate information regarding the RTI cases [successful or not] which will ultimately prove to be of immense help to the people in general.
Harshil Adds: Super Initiative. I think it was started sometime in Mid 2007 (Soft Launch). There are a few things that I think they need to do ASAP. Add RSS Feeds. So that people can browse through their case studies as and when they come.
There also needs to be a chat client installed. It makes the website more ‘involvement oriented’. So essentially when a user comes on board, if he has someone to talk to, then his experience will be better and he will also be able to be more involved with the cause.
In my opinion, the search engine needs to spruced up a bit as well. Currently when you search, only case studies are presented. As a result of that, someone really searching for material on the RTI will not get the relevant content and keywords. Case studies may help but they are not consumable for everyone. A Google Custom search bar may be handy for them.
Apart from that, the website can also leverage the medium by making the RTI ‘cool’ across social media. ‘Cool’ may not be the most appropriate word – ‘talkworthy’ is more appropriate. If this content is presented in a form that synergizes with the pulse of the youth and with an easier UI, then the RTI can be a burning topic across our generation. Im pretty sure that schools and colleges will/ should be encouraged to encourage their students to take up RTI projects (because information availability is easy – co relation then is the key). Thus additionally, the portal can also add a forum feature where people can interact and collectively work towards singular causes.
The technologies mentioned above are pretty standard – any super techies willing to help the RTIDirectory guys? Any more ideas to make the portal more relevant and consumable?
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Are you aware of another site http://www.rtiindia.org that has been running a little longer, and would seem to do many if not all of the same things as this new site you’ve advertised above. That is also volunteer-driven, and so can seem uneven. But many have acquired their nuts-and-bolts knowledge of the RTI Act (2005) and how it has been used, can be used, and of other people’s experiences, from it.
Thanks Murgie for featuring http://www.rtiindia.org - it will no doubt be handy for our readers.