The Government of India is notoriously coy when it comes to bringing information that lies within its domain to public light. While most Indians have come to accept this as part of the ‘ma-baap’ State’s self-sty-led protective nature of treating information on a ‘need-to-know’ basis, it is an anachronistic trait for a modern, expressedly open democracy like India. Responding to a Right To Information application regarding the records of correspondence between the then prime minister Indira Gandhi and president Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed regarding the imposition of Emergency in 1975, the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) has stated that, “despite its best efforts”, these documents can’t be traced.