RTI for the Living City: Filing on Behalf of Rivers, Forests, and Neighbourhoods
Most of us think of the Right to Information Act as a tool to ask the government hard questions when something feels wrong. But RTI can be something quieter and just as powerful: a way of paying attention. A way of asking what's happening to the river near your home, the forest that's being reclassified, the green corridor that wildlife still moves through even as the city closes in around it.
This workshop is an invitation to see RTI as an act of care, not just accountability. Over 3 hours, we'll walk through the basics, what RTI is, how to file one, what to expect and where it can go wrong, grounded in real experience, including live case studies. We'll talk honestly about what worked and what didn't, why some requests come back with "no information available," and why specificity and evidence matter more than most people realise. (In between, we will also have a potluck!)
But the heart of this session is a question: how do you file a request on behalf of something that has no voice of its own, a wetland, a migratory corridor, an ecosystem? We'll explore RTI as a relational practice: a way for people to stand in for the non-human world in a system that rarely makes space for it. You'll leave with a working draft of your own RTI application, and, hopefully, a slightly different way of looking at your city and its living, non-human residents.
No prior experience with RTI needed. Just curiosity, and a willingness to ask questions on behalf of more than just yourself.
Hosted by Ria Das & Saloni Goel (Rooted Cities), as part of Climate Week India, Delhi.