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‘One cellphone name a day to preserve troubles away’ is the basic mantra with which Suresh Ediga, an NRI residing in new york, has been operating for human beings in rural India. that is why and how he hasknown as over 150 MLAs and MPs in the united states of america.
i’ve been calling MLAs and MPs in India for greater than 6 years now. until now, i’ve spoken to over one hundred fifty ministers from diverse national and regional parties in unique states like Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Delhi, Assam and so on. here is a precis of why i am doing this, and how you may do the same –
Why interact with the ministers?
phone
picture for illustration handiest. supply: Flickr
preferably, every minister should preserve entire transparency with reference to all the paintingsundertaken via him/her for the duration of 5 years of workplace. There ought to be no cause to report an RTI or take in other legal method to extract this information. There should be quarterly or semi-annual interactions between the ministers and the citizens to speak about the progress of their paintings or the shortage of it. until this sort of formal system of evaluation exists, opportunity processes to hold themresponsible must be worked upon. there’s nothing political in this, it’s absolutely private. in spite of everything, their moves or inactions make all of the difference in our lives.
From schooling to employment, from birth to death, the policies they make, the choices they take andwhether or not they put into effect them or no longer – everything has a right away impact on our lives. The least we will try this case is maintain them responsible for what they’re supposed to do and calling them without delay happens to be an easy and effective way.
you could additionally Like: 5 top notch approaches in which NRIs Are assisting human beings in Rural India with just a few telephone Calls!
The effect of those telephone calls:
RTI call campaign: a group of people called a few MLAs as part of the RTI call campaign whilst the RTIinvoice turned into up for amendments under the UPA regime. The campaign become very effective in voicing the citizens’ worries and bringing this to the attention of the ministers.
individuals of Parliament local location development Scheme (MPLADS) campaign: As part of the MPLADS, every MP gets crores of rupees each year to spend on his/her constituency. The CAG auditrevealed that either the MPLADS finances were now not spent or were misused. The campaign becameto call the MPs and find out the repute of the money.
Land Acquisition name campaign: i found that had been many MPs who got here from a farming historyand had hostile the land acquisition in precept, however sadly, they have been bound via their party.
different testimonies:
parliament
supply: Flickr
From being very informed to being absolutely clueless, from being very well mannered to being absolutelyimpolite, from being very objective to being completely dismissive – I’ve had the great and the worststories in my interactions with the ministers. here’s a look:
• some ministers are thoroughly informed whilst a few are absolutely clueless – the RTI name marketing campaign turned into an example.
• some ministers are very supportive while others are dismissive – as visible within the political funding, Bastar and MPLADS calling campaigns.
• some ministers are afraid to have an independent opinion for the fear of the birthday party whip – like in the land acquisition invoice calling marketing campaign.
• some ministers experience completely powerless even to take choices in their very own constituencies –clean throughout the drought calling marketing campaign
• a few ministers are outright impolite and question our proper to question them.
• a few ministers even felt empowered that someone changed into asking them questions and they may beable to provide an explanation for their perspectives on issues.
• some ministers deny any wrongdoing whilst faced over a controversial declaration or a speech.
• a few ministers adopt a narrative to completely cut price and push aside the real issues – like within the case of farmer suicides.
• some ministers never choose up their phones regardless of having indexed multiple contacts at theauthorities web sites
• although ours is a democratic country, there may be no democracy found within the internal functioning of the celebration. The stance taken via the birthday party is most usually the stance of the ministers andno longer the alternative way round
some of the troubles taken up all through the calling campaign are as follows:
• Farmer suicides
• MPLADS budget
• Bringing political parties beneath the purview of RTI
• issues of sexual harassment
• Hate speeches
• Land Acquisition
• Drought
• scenario in Bastar
the way to make the calls?
call
supply: Flickr
it’s miles a very easy three step process. look up the number on the internet, prepare a few factors for the verbal exchange and dial the quantity. It’s as simple as that.
MP contacts: The participants of the parliament and their contacts are indexed here: tinyurl.com/CallTheMP. They also can be observed on the rajyasabha.nic.in and loksabha.nic.in.
MLA contacts: The MLA list is barely difficult because the kingdom assemblies are not list the contactsnicely. however, the party commonly has the listing maintained one at a time and with some google searches, it’s easy to discover the numbers.
nice and worst conversations:
The high-quality: An MP once employed his PA to do an stop to stop research on the RTI, politicalinvestment etc. a completely senior MP encouraged one in all our campaign and gave a few valuableinsights into the party functioning
The worst: On sexual harassment, one MP said that ladies from the south face much less harassment than the ladies from the north. On hate speeches, rather than acknowledging the wrongdoing, one MP becomeprotecting it based on different hate speeches. One cupboard minister changed into so furious that a few no person dared to name him, that he just hung up.
– Suresh Ediga
