Who is a whistleblower? If an individual expose a crime in the interest of the public to some higher authority he is referred to as a whistleblower. That is blowing the whistle on (meaning "alerting about) any illegal activity. The individual could be an employee of a private or public organisation, a client, or anyone who gets to know about unethical actions such as corruption or fraud taking place in an organisation. Sometimes whistleblowers do their job, putting their lives at risk. There are instances of whistleblowers threatened, harassed and even murdered for complaining about the crimes. The Whistle Blowers Protection Act, 2014 was enacted to enable anyone to disclose corruption and misuse of power by public servants, and to protect people reporting wrongdoings. Many organisations encourage whistleblowing, offer rewards and protect whistleblowers from retaliation. American political activist Ralph Nader is said to have given a positive connotation to the term whistleblower in the 1970s. Did you know that sports referees were once referred to as whistleblowers as they alerted the crowd and players about foul play during a game?
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