The first seminar in this series was held today with participation ofprominent media Personal including Chairperson and Additional Secretary Ministry of Finance and Mass media Thilaka Jayasundara, Director General of the Department of Government Information Attorney at Law Sudharshana Gunawardene and prominent Writer Nalaka Gunawardene .
Sri Lanka, one of the countries which has ensured the right to information of the public, possesses the third-best Right to Information Act in the world. Accordingly, the government has declared the week from September 21 to 28 as ‘Information Week’ to make the public aware of their rights under this Act.
‘Information Week’ will coincide with the UN’s ‘International Right to Information Day’ which falls on September 28. The year 2018 has also been named the ‘Year of Public Awareness’. The mobile service and school competitions will be held under this programme.
Ministry of Finance and Mass Media, on which the responsibility of implementing the Right to Information Act is devolved, has taken a tremendous effort towards the active implementation of this Act. In addition, the formulation of the structures if the Public Authorities which come under the Act, gazetting of Regulations, appointment and training of Information Officers islandwide, training of trainers, public awareness programmes and publicity programmes are in continuous conduct.
It has been observed that in order to realize the desired goals of this Act, the citizens should go beyond their personal interests and tend towards requesting information for the welfare of the public. Therefore, the year 2018 has been named as the “Year of Public Awareness” and the following programmes have been planned to be conducted in coincidence with the International Day of Right to Information, which falls on 28th of September
To declare the week from 21st to 28th September, 2018 as the “Information Week”; To issue a circular directing all public institutions to involve in activities related to the Right to Information Act during the aforesaid week;To conduct debate and essay competitions in collaboration with the Ministry of Education to cover the schools islandwide in parallel to this week;To call for abstracts of researches conducted by Universities in relation to this Act and to conduct an international conference on 28th September, 2018 in Nelum Pokuna Theatre. To implement an RTI mobile service titled “Right to Information to the Village” to coincide with the Right to Information Week.
