ananth.bangalore - 28 November, 2008 | Bangalore | Praja | suggestion

Hey SB and naveen, Thanks for your replies (to this comment), please find my inputs below..

"Anant sir, If you are willing to come forward and help carry out this survey, some of us here are willing to fund it."

SB- if you already dont know, i would like to bring to your norice that surveys are not a simple matter of going and asking questions to people. Survey design is science and there are specialised agencies to do it. When i was saying conducting a survey, i was talking about employing certain agencies like IMRB (i dont know if they do these kinds of surveys). Surveys not done scientifically can never give any useful data and usable inferences. Any sensible authority will first question the validity of the findings and we need to be prepared for that. So as one can see, it will not take the time of praja members at all, except for 2 meetings, but it will cost. i am relatively a new member and i do not know about the funds management at all.

"But I have limited time, not ready yet to give up my day job and do all this fulltime. So I am making use of my limited time to do what I feel most driven about." Praja, or any such tool, can never do much if it does thing for "others". Nobody can do anything for you if you don't feel driven enough to do it yourself. And then, there is the question of what is the right level at which we should do things, as in spend our time on?"

I appreciate your drive.. :)

"Praja, or whatever becomes of it in the future, can do anything meaningful only if it aims to become a DIY (Do It Yourself) platform or tool. It should be like, come here, find help, tools and friends, and just do it. Or else, if some of us here start doing the running around for everyone who suggests action, it will all just die after initial enshusiasm."

i do not know what warranted this response from you, i was merely seeing if there were people who are ready to form a team to work for the cause. if you can be part of it, great. maybe someone tomorrow will want to be a part of it.

"Also, remember, that running around on the ground is not the only way of doing. A detailed report with constructive suggestions is alos "doing it", for someone may read and get inspired. Filing just an RTI and telling all about what you learned is alos "doing it". At the lowst level, the fact that I or you chose to spend precious time reading and commenting here is "doing it", because that tells us all that you and I care, we have some energy inside of us, which, someday and in someway can be tapped."
"About TOI etc helping out, I am not too hopeful. There is a reson we have not converted Praja into a commercial venture yet. We would just become another TOI, pressured to sell news and make some, rather than reporting things."

i was never talking about converting Praja into a commercial venture or a profit center. I was talking about identifying interested (fot the right reason and not mearly for making money) partities who can be a part of 'a' particular initiative who probably can fund some activities like survey. there ends the association and the matter.

"For an example, we asked Lokayukta office yesterday about the recent BDA engineer bribery case involving a construction company. We were told how after spending a few days in the jail, and spending a few lakhs via lawyers and bails and *****, almost all parties are out and about. Did you know this? When the BDA engineer was caught, hundred and one newspapers of this city reported it with pictures and pomp. How many reported what eventually happened to the caught parties!?"

Do we know why they did not report it? Not what we might guess, but actually why the newspaper chose not to report it? Can we do something about it? should we mail them? i have allocated half hour to one hour daliy for praja.

"SB's summary is quite perfect. Mr.Ananth, Let me try to put it this way - Praja is a "platform" for people waiting to "take-off", & this "platform" is open to anyone at anytime & at any place at his convenience !"

Great work Praja!

"What we learn or discuss from here might assist to go about with our interests in fighting for our rights & making public servants accountable. Of course, some topics which are of common interest & sees much participation are being handled by many together, too, in groups."

Only when asked will people respond.. for us to know if this is of common interest. Maybe there are some people who want to pool in their time and effort.

"Thus, actionable items on the ground that obviously needs people's time & some efforts, resources, etc. must be either invested by the individual or pooled in by two or more individulas. I think if we continue this way, we will at some point become a strong collective voice that the authorities cannot ignore - we have already made some progress & will continue towards these endeavors with support from you, as also others. Cheers to Praja !"

2 things- a. We have seen many points of what Praja stands for in the above discussions. Can we format out thoughts and find out what need-gap Praja fulfills (sorry if i come across technical). Do we have a mission goal for Praja? can we get one? can we streamline our actionables and actually work towards it? or are we saying we will be all over the place? b. Can we move this discussion to a different thread? This thread has digressed.

---

COMMENTS

---

PRAJA.IN COMMENT GUIDELINES

Posting Guidelines apply for comments as well. No foul language, hate mongering or personal attacks. If criticizing third person or an authority, you must be fact based, as constructive as possible, and use gentle words. Avoid going off-topic no matter how nice your comment is. Moderators reserve the right to either edit or simply delete comments that don't meet these guidelines. If you are nice enough to realize you violated the guidelines, please save Moderators some time by editing and fixing yourself. Thanks!