By Venkatesh Nayak* While Governments at the Central and State levels have leaped back to the era of sharing information with the citizenry on a “need to know” basis, thanks to the threat posed by COVID-19 epidemic, all but one of the 29 Information Commissions established under The Right to Information Act, 2005 (RTI Act) have shut down. During the first and the second phase of the lockdown imposed by governments, we, at CHRI, conducted a rapid telephonic survey of Information Commissions established across India. While the Central Information Commission (CIC) resumed hearings in appeal and complaint cases from 20th April, 2020, its counterparts in the States are not yet functional. Our findings from the rapid telephonic survey are given below, followed by a submission as to why transparency and accountability are indispensable during public health emergencies like the COVID-19 epidemic. Findings from our Rapid Survey of Information Commissions During the first and the second phase