Ministry Of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions (MPPGP) is managing many crucial socio-legal aspects in India. For instance, it is managing crucial issues like public grievances, personnel recruitment and training, transparency in governance, etc. In all these spheres it is playing a great and successful role.The Ministry is also managing many crucial and far reaching legislations or proposed future legislations. For instance, the Right to Information Act, 2005 (RTI Act) is managed by the Ministry. Further, the Ministry has also proposed a law for the protection of whistleblowers in India. It is named as the Public lnterest Disclosure and Protection to Persons Making the Disclosure Bill. 2010. The Ministry has also set the ball rolling by bringing forward a “concept paper” on privacy laws and data protection issues in India.
However, the Ministry is not paying enough attention to one of the most important aspects of human life. It is not interested in bringing forward laws that can protect the dignity and safety of Indian citizens. For instance, it has not taken enough initiatives for enacting privacy laws in India and data protection laws in India. Privacy and data protection are very essential to maintain the dignity of any individual.
Similarly, the Ministry is not appreciating that corruption is eating Indian economy and there is an emergent need to protect few brave and honest disclosures by whistleblowers. By keeping in abeyance the whistleblower law for long, it is putting at risk such honest people.
It would be better if the MPPGP plays a pro active role in the directions of privacy protection and whistleblower protection as well. The overall performance of the Ministry is undermined by these two issues and issues similar to them.
