Skip to Content

Sustainable Mobility Award 2011 - Praja get special recognition from Volvo

up
310 users have liked.
Praja related

Praja got special recognition from Volvo at Sustainable Mobility Award 2011. Several Praja projects were nominated for the award, and all of them were appreciated together through the special recognition for Praja (the concept!) itself.

It all started through this website around 4 years ago, as an experiment to find like minded citizen enthusiasts, to see if ordinary and no-name people can collaborate in meaningful ways. Manjari seeded Bus Day, and thanks to the help from several others (Jenny, Narayan, Srivatsava, Bharat, more!) who met each other on Praja, and of course the unprecedented support from BMTC, Bangalore got a path breaking monthly event. Getting us a Commuter Rail service seemed, and still seems like an uphill task. but we got Sanjeev & Sathya (aka idontspam) leading us with help from Naveen, Syed and more to just keep pushing at it. There are several change seeding efforts, ranging from the likes of Mobilicity Event (Shekhar, Neha, Jenny), Non Motorized Transportation framework (Srinidhi), Bus Priority System (Naveen, Milind, Venu), to Disciplined Drivers Club (Bheema), CBD Congestion Charging proposal, Drive Well Day etc etc, each at various degree and level of effort, structure and impact.

Some say its our weakness, to many of us that's the strength. To put in Volvo representative's words, they weren't sure which individual to name and call on the stage for the award. That's as utopian as it gets - a true group, known only as Praja, and seen the way any participant wants to see it.

Cheers to the gang of 18, who call themselves the Praja RAAG (Praja Research Analysis & Advocacy Group, does the report writing and advocacy work as tighter, offline group), and the extended community that supports in their enthusiastic ways from around the world through the praja.in website.

With a rich ideation & advocacy platform going here, there is no better constructive-criticism & solution focused, open and "bring your own ideology, just produce something concrete' group that exists the way we do. Cheers to us, and everyone who believes in the concept. Lets make it better and do our bits to enrich it.

Some facts even the regular readers may not know about Praja:

  • Till about last week, none of us had seen the person who sent out some annoying RTIs around BIAL, helped write the Namma Railu Report, pushed everyone hard on Bus Day through relentless mails and calls. Seeing is beleiving, Syed is for real.
  • 2 co-authors of the BPS Concept paper (Milind, Venu) have never met or seen the other two co-authors
  • The early set of individuals who built the website 3 years ago are yet to meet as a group. One of them has not been seen by any Praja RAAG or Praja website member to this day!! Hope that he will resurface some day, and we will actually get to see him. Tarlesubba aka Vadiraj Hombal :)
  • About fifty years separate the youngest (Rithesh, or Manjari?) from the oldest member (Murali?) of Praja RAAG :)

There are more facts like above, but above may be enough to demostrate the possibilities for collaboration in this increasingly Internet-driven world.

Cheers, to everyone who hangs out here,
silkboard aka Pranav, on behalf of Praja RAAG.

Comments

idontspam's picture

2nd year in a row

up
158 users have liked.

Last year eGov recognition for the best social media initiative, then this year special recognition for contribution to sustainable mobility. The efforts of all the people who write & contribute on the site have made this happen. Special thanks to all the people who push these offline with various stakeholders & show up for events. Thanks to all.

sanjayv's picture

Fantastic! Congratulations!

up
168 users have liked.

It is great to read this news.  Congratulations to PRAJA and cheers to all the amazing people in it.  May your tribe increase.

Yay!

up
167 users have liked.

This is great news! congrats!

and Rithesh is nowhere close to being the youngest :D


deepakar's picture

Bravo!

up
151 users have liked.

Fantastic news.

Deepak Rajanna

MaheshK's picture

Congrats!

up
170 users have liked.

Congrats! Excellent work done by Praja

Keep it up!

kbsyed61's picture

Congrats!

up
156 users have liked.

Another testimonial to the hardwork that people put in.

Great job guys.

-Syed

 

murali772's picture

thussi great ho!

up
160 users have liked.

The age difference between Ananthram Sir and Pathy Sir (whose contributions have been no less), on the one side, and Manjari and Ritesh, on the other, may be closer to the figure stated. I am still a young 63, and in spirit even younger :))). And, what keeps me young this way is my association with this amazing set of Prajagalu - thussi great ho!

Muralidhar Rao
pathykv's picture

Bravo Praja!

up
147 users have liked.

I too feel proud to be associated with the group in a small way.

K.V.Pathy

dvsquare's picture

Congratulations

up
171 users have liked.

Great news :-)

Lets celebrate :-) may be a another reason for a get-together :-)

Silkboard - Lets plan for a meet, another train ride or bus-ride or may be a cubbon park one?

PS: I am out of the town from 22 to 30 this month.

Deepak

kbsyed61's picture

Time for press meet!

up
143 users have liked.

Deepak,

You are right. Time for celeberation. May be this time we should do a press meet.

-Syed

 

Devesh's picture

Deserved recognition

up
154 users have liked.

It is a well deserved recognition to the efforts of Praja that has been a long time coming. And Murali will be happy to know, that I do ride the bus -- between KBS and Mysore, and BIAS 7A quite frequently.

Good job gang, and more success will come.

- Devesh

-----------------------
Regards
Devesh
Bangalore Aviation
Enjoy life, destroy FUD
Bheema.Upadhyaya's picture

Thats awsome ! Join DDC, sticker awaiting :)

up
159 users have liked, including you.

Nice to know about award. I want to keep DDC going. Welcome to DDC, if you choose to be desciplined driver by will.

" My mantra to public bodies=> Enable->Educate->Enforce. Where does  DDC  fit?"
ashok_n's picture

Congrats

up
175 users have liked.

Congrats on the well - deserved recognition.

murali772's picture

@ Devesh - Good to know about

up
182 users have liked.

@ Devesh - Good to know about your riding the buses. Just a matter of interest - you are charged for one seat or two? :)))

Muralidhar Rao
Vasanth's picture

Kudos to Prajas...

up
168 users have liked.

Kudos to you all Prajas. This is a great honour. Next meet we can plan on Namma Metro..

I feel proud to be a Praja.

 

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!



about seo | blog