Thread by @nit_set

A Thread on #ElectoralBonds Investigations. Please stay with me.

There is something useful towards the end of this tweet-trail.

1. Happenings in Maharashtra show why #ElectoralBonds, a to flush secretly funnel unaccounted money into politics, is dangerous for our democracy.

2. The #Electoral Bond Investigation series, hosted by @HuffPostIndia, was based on #CommodorePapers. Transparency activist, Commodore Lokesh Batra (retd) retrieved the docs under the RTI Act.

3. Commodore Batra required nearly 2 years to pull the files out with repeated RTIs and a lot of effort.

Every one of us who values these revelations on the scandalous #ElectoralBonds must thank him.

Modi govt has now diluted the RTI law.

4. I spent about 2 months reading the documents and another 20 days writing it.

It took many people, almost a village, to get the series out. Some I can name. Several others that I cannot.

(To them: Thank you. You made this happen, kept me going during rough times).

5. We tried an innovative new model in Indian journalism. Collaboration between different language and regional publications. To show its possible to do good deep-dive journalism sustainably. That citizens crave for it and editors and publications exist to give it wings.

6. Pls thank the partners

@newslaundry @nlhindi
@azhimukham
@savukku
@DharitriLive1
@thelede_in
@raiotzine
@imphalfree
@arunachalti

For supporting, translating and republishing without fear, which allowed you to read #PaisaPolitics series in many languages and regions.

7. The Lede has now got the #Telugu version of #ElectoralBonds Investigative series going:

Part 1: thelede.in/governance/201…

8. Today many editors heading newsrooms in Delhi have evolved and turned into vertebrates without spines. Having suffered some earlier, I am grateful to @Amannama, EIC @HuffPostIndia. He leads as an editor should. Unflinchingly committed to the truth. Superb in his craft.

9. I could work with freedom and confidence because the rock-solid @SharanyaHK, my series-editor, had my back and worked tirelessly to see that nothing right was ever missed and nothing wrong made it past her desk.

10. But the one big reason the truth could come out was that India has the Right To Information Act.

In the spirit of the law, I am releasing the entire set of #CommodorePapers in the public domain.

You can download and read them all here: shorturl.at/dfGQ9

10. In the documents lie embedded several more stories of murky happenings around #ElectoralBonds that we have yet not touched upon.

11. Such as: Here where the BJP party asks its own govt to create the secret route of political funding such that BJP can accept foreign funds without bothering to check. And, gets everything it asked for

12. Fellow journalists, if your newsrooms allow you, take a go at it. if you need any help after you have read the docs, I am happy to help with what I can.

This is just the end of the thread. But we are not yet done telling the truth about #ElectoralBonds.

13. Thank you readers for wanting the truth to emerge. You are journalism's biggest strength.

14. If you are in Delhi on this Friday and interested in listening to how Journalism, RTI and Transparency Activists came together to bring the ElectoralBonds scandals and other revelations out. Please join us at:

Ps: One day i shall be able to avoid typos in tweet-threads that i write half nervous and half frenetic. one day.