III. Connect

In an initiative to plug the gap between the voter and representative, former LAMP (Legislative Assistant to Members of Parliament) fellow Deepa Kumar, founded the organization GrassRoute India to provide accessibility between civil society and political candidates through social media platforms like Twitter. Being an assistant to an independent candidate herself, she was struck with the realization that a huge void of dialogue existed between both the groups. Her organization aims at purging feelings of apathy by initiating a sense of back and forth dialogue between the voter and representative. The campaign aims at negating the misconception that MPs are hardly accessible; encouraging voters to check the official Parliament website which holds information about each candidate with respect to their education, interests and history. Tapping into the mobile application trend, she plans to create an Android or iOS application that provides all such information at the click of a button. In an upcoming initiative to involve the youth, Kumar and her team have organized a Twitter forum to direct peoples questions and ideas towards Mumbai South MP Milind Deora, who will then hand pick certain ones to present to the CM.

Ankur Garg and Tarun Jain who launched iForIndia in August this year, aim to build a well-informed democracy that is rooted in public awareness and political accountability. The website allows citizens to rate their MLA's or MP's on various parameters including basic needs (such as sanitation and cleanliness, public transport), governance and administration, growth and progress, professional education and reputation. Through this process, they want the elected officials to become more transparent and accountable for their actions, as well as initiate sharing of public opinions. This initiative also propels the role of the electorate in the political system, actively asking for peoples "report" on different issues. Through this initiative, former Microsoft employee Garg, aims at creating a database that would reflect the sentiments of the people and "send out a strong message to the politicians that they need to focus on their work rather than make promises". One has to register on the website by providing one’s mobile phone number and once they receive a verification code, proceed to the rating system. At present iForIndia lists 4,200 constituencies of all 28 states and two union territories of India.