Institutions are norms that undergird organizations and are reflected in laws and practices. Over time, institutions take root and persist as they are path dependent and thus change resistant. Therefore, it is puzzling when institutions change. One such puzzle has been the enactment of theRight to Information (RTI) Act in India in 2005, which brought about institutional change by transforming the 'information regime'. Why did the government upend the norm of secrecy, which had historically been entrenched within the Indian State? This book uses archival material, internal governmentdocuments, and interviews to understand the why and how of institutional change. It demonstrates that the institutional change resulted from 'ideas' emerging gradually and incrementally, leading to a 'tipping point'.About the IDSA Series: This series interrogates the interplay between globalization, the state, and social forces in the making and un-making of institutions in South Asia. Why do institutions persist and change? Do we need to transcend materialism and dwell in ideas and culture as well tounderstand why institutions perform and fail?The first book in the Institutions and Development in South Asia series, this volume studies the historical institutionalism in the information regime in India by presenting an alternative narrative about the evolution of the RTI Act.

Capturing Institutional Change: The Case of the Right to Information Act in India (Institutions and Development in South Asia)

Politics & Social Sciences

Jha, Himanshu

Mukherjee, Rahul

Jha, Raghbendra

Mitra, Subrata K.

Politics & Government

Oxford University Press

Radiant Infrastructures: Media, Environment, and Cultures of Uncertainty (Sign, Storage, Transmission)

Social Sciences

Duke University Press Books

In Radiant Infrastructures Rahul Mukherjee explores how the media coverage of nuclear power plants and cellular phone antennas in India--what he calls radiant infrastructures--creates environmental publics: groups of activists, scientists, and policy makers who use media to influence public opinion. In documentaries, lifestyle television shows, newspapers, and Bollywood films, and through other forms of media (including radiation-sensing technologies), these publics articulate contesting views about the relationships between modernity, wireless signals, and nuclear power. From testimonies of cancer patients who live close to cell towers to power plant operators working to contain information about radiation leaks and health risks, discussions in the media show how radiant infrastructures are at once harbingers of optimism about India's development and emitters of potentially carcinogenic radiation. In tracing these dynamics, Mukherjee expands understandings of the relationship between media and infrastructure and how people make sense of their everyday encounters with technology and the environment.

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Books by Mukherjee, Rahul