National Campaign for Political Reform

The NCPRI ("National Campaign for Political Reforms in India") was proposed on 10.07.2002 as the National Campaign for Electoral Reforms by concerned citizens and NGOs after the Government of the day decided not to comply with a Supreme Court Judgement requiring candidates for political office to declare their assets and list the criminal cases pending against them. On 15.Aug.2002 Dr. Jayaprakash Narayan (of LokSatta) was nominated as the President/Coordinator and Mr S.D. Sharma as Secretary of the expanded body with enlarged objectives constituted for comprehensive political reforms in India renamed as NCPRI with internet presence at URL: www.ncpri.org

In 2003 NCPRI amalgamated some disparate fledgling state level initiatives informally styled as "National Campaign for Right to Information" to achieve the common goals of securing the fruits of the Supreme Court Judgement by demanding a national FOI law in place of the ineffective Freedom of Information Act 2002. Factions from this initiative delinked from NCPRI in 2004-05 after the UPA-1 Govt announced that the NCPRI's demand for an effective national RTI law would be granted and which caused some members of the RTI campaign to join the controversial National Advisory Council as members to avail benefits.

While, Dr. Jayaprakash Narayan withdrew from the NCPRI in July 2004 and carried on his own RTI campaign under banner of "LokSatta", another group of persons closely aligned to the UPA-1 / NAC including Ajit Bhattacharjea, Bharat Dogra, Harsh Mander, Aruna Roy, Prabhash Joshi, Shekhar Singh, Prashant Bhushan etc. met at Gandhi Peace Bhawan (Delhi) in Sep.2004 and declared they would operate as "NCPRI-RTI" from their previous URL : www.righttoinformation.info of 2002.

In the meantime the NCPRI politcal reform campaign was managed by HRA veteran S.D.Sharma along with eminent RTI activists such as Sarbajit Roy, Veeresh Malik etc. with a view to combat corruption in India using RTI and agitating for political reform & tranparency by initiatives such as "RTI India" and "Humjanenge" online groups.

In Feb. 2007 the NCPRI decided to expose the massive corruption for CommonWealth Games 2010 under the banner of "India Against Corruption" in collaboration with the "Hindustan Republican Army"-HRA (a patriotic revolutionary force). Accordingly the NCPRI / IAC litigated in the Delhi High Court and Mr. Veeresh Malik brought the Indian Olympic Association under the scope of Right to Information, and thereby a comprehensive data bank of CWG-2010 financial scams was collected using the RTI by IAC volunteers.

In Sept.2010, disputes arose in the national anti-corruption movement concernng the mode of enforcing accountability for the CommonWealth Games scandals. The revolutionary forces of NCPRI accordingly distanced themself from the reactionary pseudo-Gandhian agitation clamouring for an Ombudsman's office (LokPal). From approximately 26.Jan.2011 till 25.Nov.2012 a disavowed 'India Against Corruption' campaign was conducted by 'Public Cause Research Foundation' demanding inter-alia for a "Jan Lokpal Act".

On 26.Nov.2012, the HRA formally extinguished the disavowed 'India Against Corruption' campaign after PCRF's founders announced.they were entering the political space.

In August 2013 the Government again decided not to honour the Central Information Commission's decision dated 03 June 2013 that Political Parties are covered under Freedom of Information. Accordingly on 3-Sep-2013 the NCPRI formed a special initiative styled as NCPRI ("National Campaign to Protect RTI in India") as an India Against Corruption national campaign to protect the citizen's fundamental Right To Information by a Save RTI campagin. URL: www.ncpri.in

Campaigns

  • India Against Corruption
  • Restricted
  • Electoral Reforms
  • Right to Information
  • Right to Reject
  • Right to be left alone
  • Digital Free Speech initiative

+/-