Partners

Current Partners

Janadesh

Janadesh is a trust the aims to raise public awareness, build citizenship, link civil society and policy makers, help NGOs and pressure groups to advocate and lobby and to promote research in  the political and social sciences. Janadesh is located in Delhi, but works in remote rural areas.

NFI supports a Janadesh project entitled “Building understanding on the Right to Information (RTI)”. This project is rights-based and community focused. This program is implemented in Bhit Bhagwanpur village, Madhubani district, Bihar. It has several components including training & exposure, dissemination, youth orientation and social audits, publishing magazines and website development.  

The project builds capacities of local people to use the RTI to make institutions of local governance accountable. The initiatives in the 1st phase produced 4 stories on RTI applications against the embezzlement of public money intended for the relief of flood victims in Bhit Bhagwanpur village; irregularities in the implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA); corruption in salary disbursement for Sarvashikhsha Abhiyan teachers and corruption in granting land possession certificates to some farmers. Besides, Janadesh created a public platform to leverage Panchayati Raj institutions through RTI. This initiative also strengthened the institutional collaboration of Janadesh with the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI). Janadesh has oriented college youth on RTI, held workshops for elected members of Panchayati Raj Institutions, and has engaged in filing RTIs regularly.  Several case studies have also been documented. Janadesh and CHRI have critiqued the Bihar Right to Information (Amendment) Bill-2009, which was introduced without consulting civil society organizations. Sit-in dharnas and protest actions were organized to raise public awareness on the proposed amendment. Janadesh and CHRI made recommendations for changes in the Amendment Bill.  

Old partners

Lohia Karpoori Institute for Technology for Social Change (LKIT), Rampatti, Madhubani, Bihar

NFI worked with the Lohia Karpoori Institute for Technology for Social Change (LKIT) in Madhubani district of Bihar from 2006-08. The objective of the project was to deepen the social roots of democracy by promoting a common platform for all caste groups, poor women, landless farmers and workers in a cluster of five panchayats which fall under the Rajmagar block of Madhubani district in Bihar.