As civic polls near, an IIT perspective on govenance

Express News Service

Mumbai, December 18: When IITians from across the globe ponder
nation-building exercises later this week, there will be a handful of
Mumbai-based activists present, sharing their experiences with taking,
head-on, bureaucrats, ministers, public apathy and elections.

The venue will be PAN-IIT 2006, the third IIT alumni annual conference, to
be held at the Bandra Kurla Complex from December 23 to 26. And the
activists talking on governance-alongside sessions on successful
entrepreneurship, using technology for nation building, sustainable
development and poverty alleviation-will be all IIT alumni, several with
first-hand accounts of engaging with governance issues in Mumbai.

“The keynote speakers will include IITians like Manohar Parrikar and Jairam
Ramesh,” says Dr Ajit Ranade, one of the founder-trustees of Association for
Democratic Reforms (ADR). “It’s to share what IITians have done for
governance.” So, after keynote speaker Dr Arvind Kejriwal, founder of
Delhi-based Parivartan and campaigner for the Right to Information Act, ADR’s
co-founder Prof Trilochan Sastry will speak on ‘Being a Responsible Citizen’.
He’ll dip into the seven-year experience of ADR-having started with working
against the criminalisation of politics, the group’s Election Watch campaign
is now active in 19 states. “We use the synergy of citizens’ movements,
working intimately with local NGOs, to work for more participative and
informed elections,” says Ranade. Ranade is a B Tech from IIT-Bombay’s batch
of 1982, while Sastry belongs to IIT-Delhi’s batch of 1981
With BMC elections around the corner, ADR and Action for Good Governance and
Networking in India (AGNI) have already announced a first-ever scientific
“rating system” for candidates, based on educational qualifications,
criminal history, public service record, etc.

Earlier in the day, Karmayog’s Vinay Somani, also convenor of the NGO
Coucnil-it’s a group of Mumbai NGOs working with the BMC-is a panelist on
the session ‘Evaluating The Quality of Governance’. “I’d definitely like to
recount our experiences with the NGO Council, it’s been a year of working
with the BMC now,” says Somani.

The NGO Council works for improved city governance, wrestling with issues
like solid waste management, forging partnerships between local citizen’s
groups and the authorities, as well as participating in the drafting of
various policy recommendations regarding hawkers, public health, stray dogs,
public toilets, etc. Somani is a B Tech from IIT-Bombay in 1980.
Also speaking at the session on responsible citizenry will be Shailesh
Gandhi, convenor of the National Campaign for People’s Right to Information.
Gandhi, is a B Tech from the batch of 1969