Subhash Chandra Agrawal
Subhash Chandra Agrawal is an Indian businessman and right to information activist. He holds the Guinness World Record for having written the most published letters to newspaper editors.
Early life and education
Subhash Chandra Agrawal was born on 10 January 1950 in Delhi to Om Prakash Agrawal and Padmawati. He finished his schooling from Anglo Sanskrit Victoria Jubilee Senior Secondary School, Daryaganj. He attended Delhi College of Engineering where he graduated with a Bachelor of Science. He earned his post-graduate diploma in marketing and sales management from Faculty of Management Studies, University of Delhi. He wanted to join the Indian Administrative Services, but his uncle "forced to join the family business, crushed dreams of becoming an IAS officer".Letters and right to information
Agrawal wrote his first letter to the editor of the Hindi newspaper Dainik Hindustan about a bus conductor of Delhi Transport Corporation who did not issue tickets but asked passengers to pay for them. He then raised concerns about the irregular timings of the Taj Express with the Ministry of Railways. He had written 3,699 such published letters as of 31 January 2006, which is a Guinness World Records entry "for the most published letters written to newspaper editors over an individual's lifetime".He has utilised the Right to Information Act as a tool to combat corruption in India. The Central Information Commissioner brought the office of Chief Justice of India under the purview of the RTI Act after Agrawal's application. This decision was subsequently upheld by the High Court of Delhi in 2010 and the Supreme Court of India in 2019.