Advertisements are the most powerful means for communicating the marketing message to the target audience. The presence of likeable attributes in ads has profound effect on the mindset of the audience and results in creating a positive image about the ads and consequently, the brands. This article focuses on understanding and using likeability in television commercials.

Indian democracy has witnessed endless crises of governance at all levels of decision-making as some key components of democracy viz., accountability and transparency in governance have not been given adequate attention. Internal accountability mechanisms have not functioned effectively as they lack requisite autonomy and powers, while external accountability viz., social accountability (except in some places) has not grown in the country. The Right to Information Act (RTI) has provided an instrument with which the citizens can fill this accountability gap. The RTI Act of 2005 came into effect on 12 October 2005. After its enactment it has seen many ups and downs of a democratic and transparent society. This review is intended to discuss those functional aspects of the Act contained in the handbook prepared and published by a Government organisation in Maharashtra. As usual every effort has positive and negative consequences. The same also holds true of RTI Act of 2005.

At present, we are living in the information age, having travelled from the age of secrecy to the age of transparency. In the good old days, every official transaction was considered to be an official secret, even if it was trivial or already in the public domain. It was the legacy of the British rule and the same practice was continued even after independence and in spite of enacting a plethora of laws which recognised the need for transparency in the functioning of Government and its agencies. It is only in the later part of the 20^th century that the realisation has dawned upon many democratic nations to institutionalise the right to information. The first law on RTI was made in Sweden way back in 1766. Now many nations have joined the club of countries having RTI laws; and India is a recent entrant with the enactment of the RTI Act in 2005. This law made by the Parliament supersedes the earlier State RTI laws made in a few States like Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, Goa, Delhi and Maharashtra. There are so many expectations from this legislation; and it is gratifying to note that it is yielding good results, at least in a few areas. However, the general public in India, by and large remain uninformed about this important legislation; and consequently suffer from ignorance leading to violation of their rights by the State and other vested interests.

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