Mobility Projects and Citizen engagement - how is it today, and how should it happen?

silkboard - 3-DEC-2011

[Update Dec 16: attaching the presentation prepared through this post]

The 'Upper house' concept - some replies

Mani1972 - 21-OCT-2010

Dear Friends, this is to clarify on the concept of ‘upper house’ which seems to be widely discussed some time ago in Praja.

Citizen participation in governance

idontspam - 7-JUL-2010

Can non IAS/Politico citizens add value to governance?

Dozens of dapperly dressed young people gathered to attend a conference entitled, "Exploring Spaces for Young Indians in Government."

Suri, who is spending the summer assisting the office of Sachin Pilot, Minister of State for Communications and Technology, is among the growing ranks of young Indians who are showing an increasing interest in exploring careers in public policy and government - areas in which Indian civil servants have had a historical monopoly.

Counter-intuitively, the majority of the attendees were young people comfortably ensconced in private sector jobs. If these two things are anything to go by, then it strongly signals a slow but steady shift in the years and decades to come, towards a younger, more inclusive and level playing field in India's governing fabric, which will ultimately bode well for its nation-building project.

Enforce traffic rules rigidly

mbnataraj - 16-MAY-2010

Traffic and IMV act violations: in Bangalore GALORE!

It is routine to see red light jumping, oneway violations, parking violations, slow moving vehicles in the outer most lanes,wheeliing which recently cost lives,  cell phone driving, overloaded 2/3 wheelers especially with young innocent children whose lives are endangered. Recently I saw a horrifying one motorcycle with SIX on it- 2 adults 1 kid in between and 3 kids on the gas tank. Under aged driving, tinted glasses, defective number plates( a new breed of glaring LED number plates combined with reflecting italics  small number plates makes identification impossible even from a 3 foot distance of an immobile 2 or 4 wheeler fitted with this kind of number plate.-video attached), kannada only number plates on autos and taxis, no side boards are all designed to evade identification and hence irresponsible behaviour.

How about an RTI Club on Praja?

silkboard - 18-APR-2010

Wanted to float a suggestion, just to check on feasibility and response from other users on this e-community. Many discussions, as well as projects here get into a situation where we need official records or status from local government or public agencies. In few cases, we get such information by just asking for it (email to BMTC, BMRCL etc). But in many cases, we end up with needs for RTI (Right to Information) applications. Almost every project here on Praja too needs support in terms of RTI filings.

How about we create an RTI Club here on Praja? Members of this club would basically "assembly line" the RTI filing process in domain neutral way. Let me list the mechanics:

DAKSH report on democracy and governance in Karnataka

murali772 - 21-DEC-2009

DAKSH (a registered civil society organization committed to enhancing citizens’ engagement with issues of democracy, governance, and equity) undertook a review of democracy and governance in Karnataka, as a way for a citizen’s group to engage with the democratic structures and processes at a state level.

Using Praja to write a policy proposal

silkboard - 12-DEC-2009

Have been missing in action for a week now, but writing this note to draw attention to this proposal (Join hands to write ...) for using Praja.in website as a collaboration tool to develop a transportation policy proposal for Bengaluru.

Urban Development Policy of GoK

murali772 - 11-DEC-2009

The GoK has released a draft Urban Development policy for Karnataka on 14.11.2009 for public comments and inputs. The same may be accessed here. The period for inputs ends on 15.12.09. Surprisingly, it has come the attention of the civil society only now.

Join hands to write a Transport Policy Proposal for Bengaluru

admin123 - 1-DEC-2009

Post Mobilicity, we, as a community, have this opening to create a Transport Policy proposal for Bengaluru using not just that draft we saw last week, but several such proposals that may exist today. What if we join hands to create a concrete document (a type of "crowdsourcing"), and try this as our first focused proposal creation exercise.

BMTC best, BDA worst

silkboard - 19-OCT-2009

Sorry for that catchy headline there. But we, a bunch of nobodies, group of mostly no-namers, have tried reaching out to various local bodies in Bangalore over past year for few things here and there. We have also seen and heard about other citizen's (may or may not be Praja members) attempts at connecting with city's local bodies.