Empowering the Voters in Political Constituencies in India
Provides an alternative way to impact the electoral agenda in a political constituency without fighting political parties
A propos de vous
A propos de vous
Prénom
Nidhi
Nom
Tewari
URL Twitter
https://twitter.com/#!/nidhiptewari
A propos de votre organisation
Nom
Democracy Connect
Site Web
Pays
Inde, DL
Pays dans lesquels ce projet crée un impact social
Votre organisation est-elle une
organisation à but non lucratif
Depuis combien de temps votre organisation opère-t-elle ?
1‐5 années
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Innovation
Titre du formulaire de participation
Empowering the Voters in Political Constituencies in India
Sélectionnez la phase qui s'applique le mieux à votre solution
Création (un pilote qui vient juste de démarrer)
Depuis combien de temps le projet existe-t-il ?
En place depuis 1 à 5 ans
Le besoin : décrivez le besoin auquel répond votre solution et la taille/dynamique de la ou des communautés auxquelles vous vous adressez.
India has 691797988 electorates spread in about 4500 state assembly, 545 parliamentary and almost a million village/town level local self government constituencies, with about 400 political parties and atleast 10 contestants for every seat. Officially 4000 million US$ and unofficially 40 billion US$ is spent every 5 years in these elections. There is free media with multiple news channels. Yet elections are often not about issues or any concrete proposals to address these issues. The elections last less than a month with focus on swaying people with talk of everything other than their issues around democracy and development. Political Parties have failed to bring unacceptably high level of poverty, malnutrition and inequality in the electoral/policy agenda. Women and poor find it difficult to contest elections. While India successfully conducts free and fair elections, there is need to bring more focus on issues and policy proposals during elections.
La solution : expliquez en quoi consiste votre solution et dans quelle mesure elle est innovante. Comment comptez-vous mettre votre solution à disposition des utilisateurs et des bénéficiaires ? Soyez précis !
Theoretically political parties and politicians are supposed to undertake democratic education, identify interests, aggregate and articulate these interests/issues. However over the years, in India political parties have become centers of money and state powers often in the hands of a few families. They have also created collusive nexus with other important institutions, which are supposed to maintain a healthy separation of power. The citizens even when they are organised in groups often look upto the political establishment for patronage of some kind or the other. The solution equips existing civic groups such as SHGs, issue based groups, village councils already working in a given constituency with the capacity to analyse the functioning of each level of representation on an ongoing basis and to frame their demands in terms of actionable legislative or programme changes in line with the roles of each level.
To address the disconnect between people and the political parties, who are the most crucial determinant of what gets represented and how, instead of working on regulating the behaviour of the parties through legal or political measures, the solution focuses on providing an alternative citizen centric way to alter the electoral agenda in any given political constituency.
Le modèle : donnez un exemple détaillé de la manière dont votre solution fait la différence grâce à l'utilisation des technologies de l'information et des médias.
The model trains a critical number of citizens approximately 100 already engaged in some form of socio-political activism in any given constituency on 1) analyse the functioning of each level of representation 2) framing their demands in terms of actionable legislative or programme changes in line with the roles of each level 3) election related specific services such as organising meetings, conducting surveys, formulating local communication strategy, delivering communication products and undertaking logistical coordination 4) basics of democracy, rights of minorities and underprivileged
It also creates a local democratic knowledge center by reviving any existing public library in the area.
Such trained citizens can provide superior election related services to existing political parties in a cost effective manner, while obviating the risk of underselling his/her vote for a few dollars under the pressure of poverty.
They will also ensure that multi candidate meetings are held in various parts of the constituency on pre identified issues. They can set the terms of discourse during elections much in advance. This will transform the way electorate communicate about their issues to the electoral candidates in parliamentary and assembly constituencies both during and in between elections.
Le marché : qui sont vos pairs et vos concurrents ? Comment ces acteurs peuvent-ils gêner votre réussite ou votre croissance ?
The solution clearly tries to do something that in an ideal setting political parties should be doing. Our positioning is not confrontational, it is envisaged that over the medium term some of the trained citizens would get co-opted by the parties.
The Media covers elections for a very few days and has a big city or urban center bias. The incidents of paid media have become all too common for mass media to be trusted as an independent voice. However this initiative may provide more opportunities for Mass Media to have more authentic and rigourous local information
Impact social
This Entry is about (Issues)
Point de départ : nous voulons que vous nous racontiez le moment où l'idée vous est venue. Racontez où et quand le ou les fondateurs ont compris dans quelle mesure cette solution pouvait changer le monde.
Nidhi started Democracy Connect as an experiment with a single Member of Parliament (MP) in 2005, moving on to working with several MPs across Party lines by providing them research support to be effective legislators and public leaders.
Amongst sections of Indians the terms politicians, politicization and politics have come to acquire a negative connotation. Further popular participation, especially during elections in India has not been fully translated into wide ranging developmental gains. She is engaged in investigating ways and means by which the highest potential of Indian democratic system can be realised and has increasingly come to believe that the inspiration and push for more democracy will have to come from the citizens' space and is unlikely to come from the political parties and politicians.
In 2008, Nidhi was awarded an Ashoka Fellowship for this work.
Précisez l'ampleur et la portée de l'impact social de votre solution à ce jour.
This specific solution is in the initial stage.
Quel est l'impact envisagé de votre projet dans les un à cinq ans à venir ? Votre idée peut-elle être reproduite ? Si oui, comment ?
3 political constituencies, covering a population of almost 6-7 million will have active groups of citizens who will transform communication between voters and candidates by creating platforms for issue based discussions. These will start atleast 2 years before election undertaking considerable democratic education as well as developing a shared agenda for the region in the process. This will shape the political discourse in the area and will enable the candidates to present their case in line with this shared agenda thus increasing the likelihood of more action on this agenda post elections. There will also be local knowledge centers on democracy in these areas. The idea is replicable across all the political constituencies. The initiative will have to come from civic groups.
Les projets gagnants sont ceux qui expliquent clairement comment ils comptent assurer et maintenir leur croissance. Indiquez votre plan de développement de l'impact sur six mois.
Identify constituencies and specific civic groups to engage with
Les tâches de 6 mois
Tâche 1
Meet with various civic groups, NGOs in the 3 identified constituencies, choose one
Tâche 2
Share the model with these groups and choose groups which are representative of the constituency in size and diversity
Tâche 3
Organise funds for the exercise
Et maintenant, voyez plus grand ! Indiquez votre plan de développement de l'impact sur 12 mois.
Complete the design and launch of training of the citizens in one constituency
Les tâches de 12 mois
Tâche 1
Undertake workshops with the chosen civic groups to design their 7 month long engagement with us comrising workshops and field
Tâche 2
Revive a library in the area to emerge as the center for knowledge around democracy in the area
Tâche 3
begin analyses of 3 levels of representaiton from local perspective
Combien de personnes ont été touchées par votre projet ?
Moins de 100
Combien de personnes pourraient être touchées par votre projet au cours des trois prochaines années ?
Plus de 10,000
Viabilité
Expliquez comment votre entreprise, programme, service ou produit est structuré.
ONG
Quels obstacles ont freiné la réussite de votre projet jusqu'à présent ? Comment prévoyez-vous de surmonter ces problèmes et les autres à mesure que votre projet se développera ?
Limited serious public engagement with the role of citizens in a democracy in India. While we rightfully blame politicians for various failures, we do not make it easy for our MPs and MLAs to represent us.
Limited Indian sources of funds and support on democracy.
Comment voyez-vous l'évolution des secteurs des technologies de l'information et des médias sur les 10 prochaines années ? Comment votre solution s'adaptera-t-elle à cet environnement changeant ? De quelle manière votre solution pourrait-elle entraîner ce changement ?
I see more and more democracy coming in the space of internet based media. I also see more questions being raised about the credibility and independence of news channels and news papers, esp the corporate media.
The solution will make use of the internet, esp blogging to enhance transparency and accessibility of various discussions/surveys that happen during electoral campaigns through the project's intervention.
L'échec n'est pas toujours une option. Si votre solution ne parvient pas à prendre de la vitesse au cours des deux prochaines années, quelles sont les autres applications de l'idée que vous pourriez explorer ?
Possibly will focus more on the public library aspect of the work and reduce electoral engagement. Hence the linkage will more be with academic and research institutions and less with politicians and parties.
Donnez des détails sur vos choix en expliquant votre plan de financement.
The funding for this work will come from three sources in the medium terms- 1) NGOs who are nurturing the civic groups looking for further capacity building 2) local citizens who see value in having a few citizens make elections more meaningful by doing specific ground work and 3) political parties who use the election related services
Quels sont vos différents partenariats ?
The initial partnership would be done with NGOs, Micro Finance Institutions and other loose or organized citizen mobilizations. Most of the poor in India do have their own networks with politicians and political parties.
We will not be partnering with political parties in this initiative as that would compromise its neutral character
Quel type d'équipe (salariés, volontaires, etc.) vous permettra d'atteindre les objectifs de croissance décrits à la section Impact social ?
People who have deep faith in democracy, who believe that ordinary even illiterate citizens can and should participate at the highest level of decision making, who can interpret laws and parliamentary proceedings, who would be humble and open to learning
Changemakers est un espace de collaboration et de soutien. Indiquez les ressources communautaires dont vous auriez besoin pour développer durablement votre initiative. Sélectionnez toutes les réponses qui s'appliquent
Investissement.
Indiquez les ressources que vous pourriez offrir pour aider d'autres initiatives. Sélectionnez toutes les réponses qui s'appliquent
b. Ressources humaines/talents, Recherche/informations, Collaboration/réseautage, Innovation/idées, Tutorat.
Détaillez les besoins ou les offres d'aide indiqués ci-dessus et/ou suggérez d'autres catégories de soutien qui ne figurent pas dans la liste.
We can offer knowledge around Indian democracy and its functioning.
Résumé
Définissez votre entreprise, programme, service ou produit en une ou deux phrases courtes.
Transform the way electorate communicate about their issues to the candidates during and in between elections in India.
Expliquez en quoi votre solution est innovante en une ou deux phrases courtes.
Provides an alternative way to impact the electoral agenda in a political constituency without fighting political parties
 | il y a 87 semaines Nidhi Tewari updated this Competition Entry. |
| il y a 87 semaines Nidhi Tewari submitted this idea. |