No Discussion, Few Disclosures: How Centre Puts Democracy at Risk – By Arsh Rampal

….The Centre seems to be making concerted efforts to limit public participation by attacking the two crucial elements of participative democracy. It has provided inadequate time to the public to submit feedback on policy decisions.

By straying from the general practice of publishing draft legislation and policies in vernacular languages and giving them wide publicity, it has subverted the disclosure of information to the public. These have a direct bearing on effective public participation.

The effect worsens when we take the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic into account. The pandemic has weakened public participation and information disclosure norms. The judiciary has tried to uphold participatory aspects of the Indian democracy, but it is primarily the task of the government to facilitate participative democracy.

https://www.newsclick.in/no-discussion-few-disclosures-how-centre-puts-democracy-risk