Table of Contents
Methodology — how RTI Wiki sources, verifies, and publishes
Open methodology for everything we publish. If a researcher or journalist wants to reproduce or audit any RTI Wiki claim, this page tells them exactly how.
Source hierarchy
We use sources in this order of preference:
- Statutes — RTI Act 2005, state RTI rules, related Acts (DPDP, CrPC, CCS Pension Rules, etc.)
- Constitutional bodies — Supreme Court, High Court, CIC, SIC orders + judgments
- Government circulars — DoPT Master Circular, ministry OMs, CVC manuals
- Official portals — sansad.in, rsdoc.nic.in, lsdoc.nic.in, eci.gov.in, prsindia.org datasets, gov ministry portals
- Authoritative secondary — PRS India, Common Cause, SNS reports, MyNeta, ADR
- News organisations — The Hindu, The Wire, Caravan, LiveLaw, Bar & Bench (specific stories cited)
We do not use sources of unverified provenance (random forums, undated screenshots, anonymous tipoffs).
Data pipelines
Live structured data is mirrored from authoritative APIs:
| Dataset | Source | Update cycle |
| Rajya Sabha members | https://rsdoc.nic.in/MemberGetData/getmemberall | Monthly |
| Lok Sabha members | https://sansad.in/api_ls/member | Monthly |
| Parliament bills | https://sansad.in/api_rs/legislation/getBills | Weekly |
| MP photos | https://sansad.in/getFile/… | Quarterly |
| Wikipedia bios | https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/page/summary/ | Monthly |
| State portal status | Manual periodic verification | Quarterly |
| CIC orders | CIC website + manual indexing | Continuous |
Source URL is preserved for every record. Every CSV download bears a “source” header.
Article structure
Every editorial article follows the 14-block citizen-first format:
- Direct-answer block (≤50 words)
- Hero image
- DPDP banner (cookie compliance)
- Lead paragraph
- Legal framework (collapsible — citizens skip; lawyers expand)
- Key principles (5-7 bullets)
- Decision framework (5-7 numbered steps)
- Template (copy-ready text in `<code>` block)
- Illustrations (subject- or case-wise)
- Case-law anchors (2-4 citations with takeaway)
- Common mistakes (5-6 bullets)
- Pro tips (4-5 bullets)
- FAQs (3-5 Q&A)
- Conclusion + Related reading + Sources + Last-reviewed date + tags
AI assistance disclosure
We use LLMs (Anthropic Claude, Groq, OpenAI) for:
- AI Drafter outputs — labelled “AI-drafted”
- Hindi summary generation — labelled “Beta translation”
- Outcome Predictor reasoning — labelled “AI-suggested”
- PIO Reply Checker analysis — labelled “AI-suggested”
We do NOT use LLMs to author the 700+ editorial articles or the case-law summaries without human verification of every fact.
Fact-check protocol
Each article passes through:
- Author — drafts + cites
- Editor — independent review against sources
- Auto-checker — CMS scans for unlinked-citation, broken-link, missing-source
- Publication — green Verified badge applied
- Re-review cycle — 12 months evergreen, 3 months time-sensitive
When a CIC/SC/HC ruling we cite is reversed or modified, we update the article within 14 days of becoming aware.
Reuse
Editorial content: CC-BY 4.0 with attribution. Datasets: CC-BY 4.0. Tools: free use, no payment, no API rate limit other than fair use.
Reproducibility
Want to reproduce our state-portal status table? CIC backlog stats? Bill counts? Every claim has a Source line at the bottom of its article. Click through. If you find a discrepancy, file a correction.
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