Is the Government ready to handle an invasion by zombies and aliensIJ Can the country survive such an invasion without the help of Hollywood actor Will SmithIJ These are some of the questions that a Mumbai resident posed to Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) under the Right to Information (RTI).
An unamused MHA simply said that these are hypothetical questions and are not dealt by the MHA. Minister of State (MoS) Kiern Rijiju, however, has a better, unofficial but rather witty reply to the query. “The subject matter is too scientific,” Rijiju said while adding that “these kind of RTIs waste the precious time of office staff,” as he highlighted the kind of frivolous queries that come to Government offices.
“I am concerned about the readiness of our Government in the event of an invasion by Aliens Zombies and Extra Dimensional Beings. Can the MHA tell me what plans are in place for protecting the public in the event of an invasion by Aliens or Zombies or Extra Dimensional BeingsIJ What are our chances against themIJ What means does the Government have to defeat themIJ Can we do it without Will SmithIJ,” were the questions send by one Ajay Kumar in July to MHA.
Interestingly, Kumar told mediapersons that he had filed this RTI as a sign of protest after his serious RTIs got a frivolous response from the Government and that he wanted to waste a bureaucrat’s time is a sign of protest.
While Kumar may not have got a proper response from the Government, the social media was full of suggestions and humour on the RTI queries. Someone even posted a Parliament Question put by former Rajya Sabha Member Rajkumar Dhoot in 2009 to the then Union Minister of Space Prithviraj Chavan whether Romanian Government had claimed that their planes were attacked four times by Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO), whether there was eminent danger from Star Wars, and if so how prepared was the country for it.