Got this on Janaagraha's email group. worth posting, and nice initiative.
Janaagraha in partnership with Tata Tea will launch a national campaign - Jaago Re! One Billion Votes on 16 September 2008 in Mumbai. The objective of the partnership is to create a platform that will motivate and enable the vast numbers of Indian youth to participate actively in the electoral process of the country.
In the launch year (2008-09), the campaign will target the urban voters in 35 of India 's largest cities, with a focus on the youth. The coverage represents 10% of Indian voters. The movement will build up to the upcoming general elections in April 2009 and will target to register at least 4 million first time voters.
The campaign's Advisory Board includes - N R Narayan Murthy, T S Krishnamurthy (ex Chief Election Commissioner), Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra (Filmmaker) and Tariq Ansari (MD, Mid-day group).
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what's the point?
But, what's the point till such time as the problems pointed out at subversion are not sorted out? There has to be a concentration of effort by NGOs and others across the country to sort out this issue first and foremost.
Muralidhar Rao
NGOs - why?
Its a sad state of affairs that 1) we need NGOs to help with this most basic aspect of democracy 2) we place more trust in NGOs that government itself to do this.
Regardless, lets take what we get. Attempts to make more young people register will make more and more people see and withstand what you, me, Ananthram etc have experienced via our own Voter Id experiences.
A national id card has become a big need, with more blasts by the week. One wonders if the Voter-Id itself can grow to become that. CM had announced a state level id card, lets hope he realizes one more id card is not what we want. We want one solid id card that has a verifiable issuer and something that can be trusted by all parties in this country.
sorry, that's not what I meant
I meant NGOs and others should campaign for the correctives to be effected - not for NGOs to undertake the task of preparing and maintaining the voters' list, as well as issue of ID cards. That has to be a totally frofessional job, and the cost whatever has to be paid for it. There can be no cost higher than having a less than 90% accurate voters' list.
Muralidhar Rao
Bangalore BBMP Election
Janaagraha's Jaagte Raho! campaign has teamed up with CommonFloor.com to ensure all residents of Bangalore go out and vote for these all important elections, which will affect our quality of lives on a day-to-day basis!
http://janaagraha.org/fil...