Praja.in - whats ahead?
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Written By admin123 - 17 October, 2007
Bangalore
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A "whats next" type discussion has been pending for sometime now, how about we start one. To kick it off, here are the two broad thoughts what got us started in the first place:
=> Need for a platform to enable citizens to be activists in their areas of concern and interest. Platform as in enable and equip, with information, pointers, complaint numbers, contacts of relevant people, success/failure stories and alike.
=> Try to utilize the power of Internet to build a big and strong community. We realize that if easy and online ways of activism are made available, there will be better participation because the reality of present times is - most of us are not willing to give these things serious personal effort and time.
So we took off, with this website Praja.in, and the first goal is to build a sizable community of like minded urban residents. Like minded as in concerned, knowledgeable, aware, and at times willing to indulge in activism.
But, with time if we could supplement the discussions with some field-work, that should bring us visible results and satisfaction. Towards that, we could:
- organize events, like meet with BBMP/BDA officers to ask or to tell.
- File RTI applications on behalf of community
- Few of us participate in town-hall/RWA type meetings and communicate thoughts and ideas on behalf of all of us
- and more (PILs?)
Frankly, converting an active online community to be more meaningful is an area of challenge, and the ideas should come from the community itself.
So let us know what your thoughts are, and help us define goals that fit the broad theme of community driven activism leveraging Internet as the networking and enabling platform.
One more thing. We want to keep and grow Praja.in as a faceless and champion-less group as much as possible. We are not a bunch of publicity seekers or glory hunters. A big and active online-citizen's community is our goal, and we are all stakeholders in building and maintaining it. So while we, the admins run the site and watch after technicalities and moderations on as-needed basis, please contribute, via content now and some field-work later.
- {Praja.in admin team}
Thats very good idea and a good set of features.
my two paisas.
it is important for us to develop a commonly developed knowledge base about various aspects of the city. there are many different aspects like lakes, slum development, power reforms, water, sewage, trees etc that cannot be caught by rss feeds such as
this and
this.
the primary sources for such information is news items and perhaps books on these issues. we need more participation in collecting such information. we read a article on some site, then perhaps we cut and paste the article and provide a link. if there is book, perhaps post a brief summary or some relevant parts of it and give the name of the book, author so that others can get the book.
A Great Idea !
Signboard at St. John's Hospital OPD:
A small idea properly implemented is better than a thousand big but unimplemented ideas.
All the best, Praja and Thampan!
- City Zen
can we register as an organisation and then meet the seretaries/officials under a banner and make presentations..compelling ones at that!
I think RTI is the single most powerful tool that has been given to the Indian citizen to fight for his rights. We ought to use this to the hilt. It is inexpensive and can be used to gather all the data we need to file a PIL for example. I want to gather data to show the systematic neglect of pedestrians in our city. If each of us files a RTI application each week, it will show that we mean business. I have read cases where ration cards and passports were magically issued and roads completed when a RTI application was filed.
I have been visiting various government websites to get the names of their Public Information Officers - BDA, KSPCB, BBMP. I have also got the progress reports from the BBMP on JNURM projects, the commisioner's budget speech, etc. This can be a starting point for asking questions.
the main thing to keep in mind is to ask fact/data based questions. E.g. how uch money has been allocated for tarring roads in Whitefield? how much has been spent? Which roads have been tarred? Who was the contractor? Who inspected the work before the payment was released, etc etc? None of these questions are in the realm of opinions (e.g. why does Sarakki lake smell bad)?
I will send the pdf files I have collected thus far to Silkboard and Tarle. Tarle - will need your help in translating a Kannada pdf from the BBMP website (thought the filename is english.pdf!!!). We can use data from these files to start seeking information on progress made, etc etc.
I could not get the PIO for the Bangalore City Police. If someone has it it will be great.
Thanks,
Srivathsa
Have a section for praja projects / (maybe can be called prajects).
These can be of any nature, but the idea is that you post the project details here and praja helps you to take it forward.
Some people may have ideas and technical expertise
Some people may have time to follow them up.
So bring the people together and open up a platform.
Any praja user should be able to create a praject and other users should be able to join in it.
some basic rules
1) Define the objective -
This could vary like
a) obtain the status of road works done in place x through RTI
b) get bangalore traffic police implement a new traffic policy on road x ( say a new one way or two way)
This could also have a dead line - but i think this may be optional as public projects may take a longer timer than you think it should.
2) define the modality of how to go about it
ex :
a) I will submit an application
b) bring this idea to the notice of traffic police officials, please help me in doing this.
2 a) if you can identify what kind of support you need or if you can identify roles for the people who need to be in the praject, identify them.
3) do the work
a) here the user should be able to update the progress made on the project
4) close the praject
a) it may be a success - great work
b) it could not be done due to so and so reason
5) do a post mortem and apply the learnings for other prajects.
these prajects can also expand to public - private collaborations, - like a recent chennai initiative to fill up the pot holes.
A Summary page can be present where you could show the open projects and also status of the closed projects.
Basically something like a source forge for social projects.
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