What is Praja.in?
Yathaa Raja Tathaa Praja, so we read in certain ancient texts. Times have changed. In these modern democratic days, Yathaa Praja Tatha Rajaa is more like it. Today, Raja only reflects Praja. The so called politicians and everyone else we blame no end only mirror our society and us.
Do you think we know and care enough about developments taking place in all our localities? Do you think the Praja truly participates in the way she is governed? We think not. What if we - the Praja - made efforts to know, care and participate? And it is not that our democratic leaders and appointed administrators don’t care at all. Many do, and they try, but lack of interest and participation from us makes their job a lot harder.
Praja.in aims to be a bridge between those who serve us and those amongst us who care and want to participate. Towards that, it aims to establish an Internet driven community to help make the connection at local levels. It wants to be a networking platform for active and concerned citizens.
Long term goals will always sound lofty and dreamy. But as a start, Praja.in aims to capture voices and opinions from the ground via web based tools of blogs and discussion forums. Once the community expands and builds credibility, we will take the next step of participation via RTI queries, town hall meetings, suggestions, complaints or PILs. Some examples of what we can do in future:
- Log electronic complaints directly from the website. What good is a negative sounding blog post if it doesn’t get to the right people? What if we popularize citizens charters of BDA, BBMP etc? They do listen if not act.
- Few folks can proxy the rest of us into those town hall meetings that we never come to know of. May be with time, host online town hall meetings for local government bodies.
- Some members volunteer to carry complaints and suggestions directly to local bodies who can act on them.
- Be a source of ultra local news and discussions, to the level of mains and crosses in Jayanagar, Malleshwaram or Indiranagar.
Please come join us, and help build an active networking-platform for responsible and caring yet concerned citizens.
About us
To sound Utopian is not the idea. But to be able to convince folks to move up from their individual efforts and join in, we think it is best not to mention names here. Or else this citizen-networking platform would be seen as X, Y and Z's site and not a community.
However, the site has four sets of people working behind the scenes.
- Caring Citizens - These budding activists and enthusiasts keep the community buzzing by posting their analysis, complaints and experiences. If you'd like to join in, just register and get started. Or, use the contact form with the option 'Join as a content creator' and mention your relevant credentials.
- Moderators - These are active members of the site who have volunteered to help moderate content posted on this site.
- Activists - These folks take discussions a bit further by taking them on-ground. We promote on-ground projects that involve civic participation and tracking of public organizations as well as projects.
- Tech-heads - These folks keep the site running and focus on making it easy to view and use. If you'd like to join and help, please use the contact form with the option 'Join the technical team' and your interests and abilities on that front.
About the banner
Praja members Narayan82 and Santsub offered to help with the banner and logo. After looking at a few suggestions from them, Narayan's creation won the nod for banner as well as logo images. Narayan's banner creatively captures some of Bangalore landmarks, and the logo (holding hands) symbolizes networking.
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