iJanaagraha

To create relevance in people’s lives - both theoretically and practically - about these issues. Everyone knows, talks about it, and complains, but to actually get involved and take up an issue, it has to appeal to them, and creating that appeal is a big challenge.

At two levels:

1. Internal – Content. Creating relevant content packaged in an interesting way to appeal to citizens to take up issues and act at different levels, starting from the individual to whole neighborhoods to the urban level.

2. External – Network on the ground with other citizens, digital activists, policy experts, organizations, online or otherwise, and the government to bring about effective change.

The urban civic system in today’s India, is a broken one – a lot worse than its rural counterpart! The local administration, the lowest form of urban governance, is under-powered. Citizens are ill-informed as to the ways and means to take up their issues, starting from the individual to the neighborhood level and upwards, irrespective of intent. iJanaagraha aims to citizen-train and empower the local governance system at the lowest level, and act as a bridge between the ‘demand and supply’, while keeping a tab on direct accountability.

70% of India is predicted to be urbanized by the next decade or so. The rapid growth of urban India - post-liberalization - has created a huge gap between the current quality of life, and civic and infrastructural needs. This is buoyed by the lack of citizen initiatives, empowerment of local governments, and forms of direct accountability.

With media as my background, having extensively worked with radio before, an opportunity to cover Janaagraha brought out some interesting revelations about the work they were doing – ‘practical patriotism’ and ‘professional volunteerism’. Intrigued, I decided to volunteer part-time, which is when I got drawn into the cause and decided to take a break from media and spend most of my time with the organization. Today, I’m their full time Communications Advisor. iJanaagraha gave me the opportunity to explore the creation of a ‘touch-point’ between the government and citizens, via great content, design and exploring ideas to facilitate the objective.

Citizens generally, do not know, how to take up their causes and issues, and that creates a vacuum in participation, irrespective of their intent. An online platform, such as iJanaagraha, not only informs and trains citizens, but also works on empowering the local government to address issues, once taken up. It also enables both the citizens and the government, via various tools like maps, etc., to solve them, while tracking on the accountability process.

A good example would be the Jaagore campaign. It registered 600,000 voters, since its launch.

About 50. Sometimes more.

About 150 hours. or so.

Collecting data, prioritizing issues and packaging them in a more ‘appetizing manner’, for the citizen-audience to find relevance with them. Also, making information more accessible and tools more simple, and encouraging for citizens to actively participate and then act.

The available information is extracted from government sources, and papers that are not readily available, are extracted by commissioning researches.

The other effective endeavor, is that of WISA (Ward Infrastructure & Services Assessment) – a seven point check system, designed to effectively and tangibly assess, ‘quality of life’ that can be monitored. This is to scientifically examine public opinion about the ground reality, vis-a vis basic standards. Here, the citizens are empowered to tell the government, what their priorities are. This in conjunction with government information, leads to a rational relationship between the citizens and their government.

Janaagraha, by virtue of its work and established presence, already has an audience that has participated actively, and follows up on its work regularly. iJanaagraha, therefore, already has an audience base.

The other planned aspect is to network with other organizations working in different fields and on various issues. So iJanaagraha, through such networking, not only becomes a wider platform, but also a common-point for citizens, activists, organizations and the government, to interact and act and balance contextual ‘demand and supply’.

I would think networking - at the citizen level, with activists, welfare groups and other organizations working on different fields. Right now, the current active participants of Janaagraha, are definitely the biggest propagators.

The target audience is necessarily, urban. A preferred age group of between 25 – 30.
Janaagraha, so far, is our biggest contributor of readily available audience.

No.

Mainly, the number of people that register on the site, the number of partnerships with other organizations on the platform, and very importantly, the involvement/association of eminent media houses, social thinkers and writers, in contributing their thoughts and points of view to the platform.

The knowledge of the fact that you are making a difference. Through being an informed citizen, taking up your cause and issues at the individual, neighborhood and urban level, you are a participating citizen, who counts and matters – even if, you are selfish enough to just take up your own cause, it still makes a difference.

Firstly, they should know and understand the target audience.
Secondly, young, and urban – people who understand the issues themselves.
Third, and the most important is that, they should be aware of, and well-conversant with technology tools, such as the ones used by us, like digital/interactive maps etc..

We are definitely looking for funding in the coming years.

We are looking at networking with other organizations, online, or otherwise, thereby building a platform for anybody, who wants their issues looked at, and addressed. We are also looking at valuable association with digital activists, media houses, etc..

Yes. We are looking at different tools, like, digital/interactive maps, which form a vital part of our information dissemination, social networking tools, online platforms and so on, for the citizens to connect better with their eco-system.

As for an extension of the Jaagore/Jaagte Raho campaigns, we want to provide search engines to provide voter information, as well as, facilities for online registration.

The communication with the government, typically have been related to the larger project. For example, Jaagore with the Election Commission of India, and so on.

iJanaagraha would have communication with the government at two levels:

1. on the conglomerated programs of Janaagraha.
2. on issues and aspects, iJanaagraha brings in individually.

No. Only policies that need to be changed or framed, as they come up through the various initiatives, and prove to be important and inevitable for development and growth, like in the case of JnNURM.

Definitely WISA (Ward Infrastructure & Services Assessment). It’s probably the first of its kind in India, which effectively puts a tangible metric system on the otherwise intangible concept of ‘quality of life’, using seven parameters, thus rendering it, scientific and research-oriented in approach and not just based on perception. Beneficial for both ‘demand and supply’ sides.

Other than that, Arghyam, a project working on the water management and sanitation sectors, and Mumbai Votes.

2010 - Launch in the first week of July, and then focus on participation building with other organizations and citizen involvement and training - establishing the idea of nation-building, starting from neighborhood.

2011+ - Expansion to other Indian cities beyond Bangalore, and approaching and working on broader issues.