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The first National Youth Convention on Right to Information and Democracy was held on the 11th and 12th of January, 2008 in Beawar, Rajasthan. The convention was attended by over 1,000 young participants from both rural and urban areas of 11 states across the country. The convention was organized by NCPRI , along with JOSH- the Delhi based group working with youth , and other organizations from Rajasthan like the MKSS, the Jaipur based RTI support group, and citizens groups in Beawar, including the daily local newspaper Nirantar.The two day convention was held to discuss and focus on the crucial role the youth can play in strengthening Democracy through the use of Right to Information on issues of social importance. The convention was structured with sessions on role of youth in democracy and politics, along with workshops of various concerns like negative impact of globalization, gender, communal politics, agriculture, state of Dalits and Adivasis, budget analysis, Human Rights, Right to Information, National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, Education and Employment and others. The main objective of these workshops was to create a general understanding on these issues, the challenges and areas,the problems, the role youth can play in addressing these concerns, the role that Right to Information can play in facilitating these problems and finally draw out a plan for action. These workshops were facilitated by eminent resource persons like, Jean Dreze, the MKSS team ( Aruna Roy, Nikhil Dey, Shankar Singh and others), Vrinda Grover, Aseem Srivastava, Amit Kanwar, Jogendra Bhagat and others. Full Article