The RTI movement's Rajasthan roots: MKSS at Devdungri, the Beawar sit-in of 1996 and the Act of 2005
Background
Background to the Beawar procession of October 11: Rajasthan is where India's Right to Information movement began.
Aruna Roy and colleagues founded the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) on May Day 1990 in a mud house in Devdungri village, Rajsamand district.
Its first public hearing on development spending was held on December 2, 1994 at Kot Kirana in Pali district.
When a 1995 promise of information on Panchayati Raj matters went unfulfilled, the MKSS began an indefinite sit-in at Beawar in April 1996 under the slogan 'Hamara paisa, hamara hisaab'.
Tamil Nadu was the first State to enact an RTI law, in 1997.
Parliament passed the Right to Information Act on May 12, 2005; it received presidential assent on June 15 and came into force on October 12, 2005.
In plain words
Jan sunwai Public hearing — An open village meeting where official records of public spending are read out and checked.
NCPRI National Campaign for People's Right to Information — The 1996 campaign that drafted the first version of a national RTI law.