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Janaagraha

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Janaagraha
Founded2001 by Ramesh Ramanathan and Swati Ramanathan in India
TypeNon-profit
NGO
ServicesImproving the quality of life in Indian cities and towns
CEO
Srikanth Viswanathan
Websitewww.janaagraha.org

Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy (www.janaagraha.org) is a non-profit trust, working towards the mission of transforming the quality of life in India’s cities and towns. Founded in 2001 by Ramesh Ramanathan and Swati Ramanathan, it started as a movement to include people’s participation in public governance and has now evolved into a robust institution for citizenship and democracy. The core idea of Janaagraha’s work does not revolve around fixing problems but instead seeking to fix the system that can solve the problems. To achieve this objective, Janaagraha works with citizens to catalyse active citizenship in city neighbourhoods and with governments to institute reforms to city governance (what we call “City-Systems”).

Janaagraha believes that improved quality of life is directly linked to improved quality of infrastructure, services, and citizenship. Janaagraha hence works at intersections to fix the city systems across law, policy, institutions with a specific focus on sectors such as Climate Change, Gender Equality & Public Safety, Water and Sanitation, Education, and Public Health using tools and activities like Civic Participation, Municipal Finance, Advocacy and instilling 21st Century skills among youth to empower them to become active citizens. By strengthening urban capacities and resources, Janaagraha aims to achieve its mission of improving City Systems and Quality of life.

Online Initiatives

I Change My City

IChangeMyCity is a social networking initiative that is committed to urban issues - electoral and civic. It aims to initiate change, build networks of communities & local civic bodies, provide data on urban issues, civic awareness & training – all of this at a local neighbourhood level. By providing relevant information in the form of interesting content and a platform to discuss and debate issues of importance, iJanaagraha is a platform for people to come together in support for systemic change.

I Paid A Bribe (IPAB)

IPaidABribe is Janaagraha's initiative to tackle corruption by harnessing the collective energy of citizens. Citizens can report on the nature, number, pattern, types, location, frequency and values of actual corrupt acts on this website.[1] The reports, perhaps for the first time, provide a snapshot of bribes being paid (or taken), across Indian cities. IPaidABribe uses them to argue for improving governance systems and procedures, tightening law enforcement and regulation. Thereby reduce the scope for corruption while obtaining services from the government.[2]

Offline Initiatives

Ward Infrastructure Index (WII)

The Ward Infrastructure Index (WII) program is a unique initiative to assess quality of life in urban areas. It analyzes various wards by its quality of infrastructure and rates them on scale of 0-10 (0 being the worst and 10 being the best) to give residents and municipalities an easy indicator on how their respective wards measure up against standard benchmarks set by the government. The project looks at services such as water supply, electricity, public health, public safety, civic amenities, transport, and environment to arrive at a rating. It not only provides valuable information to urban planners and decision makers to streamline delivery of goods and services to different wards but it also facilitates direct accountability of local administration and elected representatives to the urban citizens.

References

  1. ^ "Corruption in India: A Million Rupees Now". The Economist. 10 March 2011.
  2. ^ "Urban local bodies: Property taxes using PPP jumped 5 times in 2 years". The Financial Express. 2017-12-02. Retrieved 2017-12-16.
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