Friday, January 3, 2014

A National Change Via Apps: Vote India!

With 2014 General Elections knocking the door, I feel as an Indian citizen, it is our individual responsibility to spread the awareness, inspire and motivate people specially the youth, who constitute the majority of the population of the country and is about to become the youngest country by 2020, to vote.



Amid the changes in the attitudes of the people and the record 66 per cent of around 1.2 crore voters exercising their voting grants in the Delhi assembly election it gave the Delhiiets the mega change in the capital. This has fueled the hopes of the change we Indians have been craving for that we have the power to choose our people to govern the state and the nation to serve the citizens and make the country a better one.

Now on an individual level our access to reach a large number of people in today's time is through internet and mobile apps. even to ask others to turn up for an event its the fastest way to reach people. Given that out of there are 51 million smartphone users in urban India today with the young generation using smartphones and its various apps more than the rest of the population.

First we need to understand why people do not vote. There are many reasons: lack of knowledge and awareness of the importance of elections, apathy towards the entire procedure and worse they prefer enjoying the off day. 

Here the the mobile chat apps, like we-chat, can be used to encourage the youth and make them motivate others, even the elder generations who by now have somewhere given up on the system or do not understand its significance.

I have decided to create a page on Facebook listing out the basics of voting and Election Commission rules and share it with my contacts on my mobile apps. The page will talk about the rules attached to voting for example the 49-O rule.

“Rule 49-O is a rule in The Conduct of Elections Rules, 1961[1] of India, which governs elections in the country. It describes the procedure to be followed when a valid voter decides not to cast his vote, and decides to record this fact. The apparent purpose of this section is to prevent the election fraud or the misuse of votes.”
-[source-Wikipedia.]

I'll be updating my contacts with news related to EC through the various sharing options on the chat apps, like the one I'm already sharing; Indian Election Commission has tied up with Google where the later will tender EC its resources like search engines to enable voters to check with their enrollment statuses online and also to locate the polling stations through Google maps.  

Conducting various discussions and debates over politics, government, parties, the candidates and the needs of people and the nation would be a good motivating factor. And invitation to these events will be sent through the mobile apps. The videos of these discussions can be later shared with others through the smartphone apps and let it go viral. I am already listing the topics to discuss and I have many friends contributing. 

Sharing various photos and videos, through these mobile apps, that motivate to vote can boost up the level of enthusiasm of the youth to get what they want by casting votes. I am collecting such photographs and videos and also making one of my own where I will have some young volunteers prompting India to wake up and make the desired transformation. A month before the elections I’ll begin with my sharing.

On the week of election till the D-day of it, my status on the apps will be “Election Week; # of day/s to go”. This will act as a reminder to all of my contacts of the day they will contribute to the change and
not to take the Election Day as a holiday to chill but to get up, walk into the polling stations and cast their votes to the candidate they feel is apt to win. This will ensure that they can chill after the right government is in power. 

It's our duty and its up to us to make India the country we want to live and to let Her set as an example to the world as a great country to look up to and with the right use of these latest technology, the mobile apps, we can bring in the CHANGE.  

 
This post has been written for the motivating contest held by We-Chat and Indiblogger; "Indian General Elections 2014 with social mobile apps".  

*****

Acknowledgements: The Times of India and Wikipedia.
Illu
stration: By Namrota (Me, the author of CoffeeBeans).
Top post on IndiBlogger.in, the community of Indian Bloggers

29 comments:

  1. Cute illustration Nam! Lovely post..all the best yaar :)

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    Replies
    1. Thank you Bushu and all the best to you too yaara :*

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  2. Best of luck with the contest :)

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  3. Excellent write up. I found gold reading your blog content, many things I found here amaze me. Good work you guys.
    Thanks!

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    Replies
    1. Thank you for those wonderful words, Vinayak. And also my blog is authored by me only and not a group...but by "you guys" if you mean my readers then yeah.. they are amazing bloggers too :D

      Delete
  4. This is something I liked, the illustrations :) Cute post :) All the best Namrota

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    Replies
    1. Thank you very much Saurabh.. but you found it cute? :D

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  5. I like the sense of responsibility you have expressed here. If all of us put this kind of effort it will definitely inspire the youth.
    All the best Namrota!

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    Replies
    1. Exactly. It's the sense of responsibility that we must realise and act upon it.

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  6. hey, I wrote about the 49-O rule too :D
    yay! hi5! All the best darling :)

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  7. You are so right about the reasons people don't vote. We all need to make some effort to inspire others to vote.

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    Replies
    1. Absolutely, being the citizen of India, its our responsibility to make others realise their duty towards the nation.

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  8. Apt analysis. Agree with your views here.
    Best wishes for the contest :)

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  9. This was very insightful ... voting is our responsibility, and we should make everyone realize that ... very well explained :-)

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    Replies
    1. Thank you Amrit, I really hope people don't take it just as a contest post but act as well.

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  10. You rightly said that its our duty and responsibility to vote. The problem is we erroneously call it a right. Rights can be taken away but duty and responsibility is very personal and cannot be taken away from us.

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    Replies
    1. Bingo. Moreover, I've heard so many people call it our fundamental right, this only shows how ignorant the people of this country are.

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  11. very well written and I hope we could follow these ideas next time. All the best for the contest..:)

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    Replies
    1. I feel we can follow these this time as well...and thank you Vanadana :)

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  12. Good thoughts and good contest by indiblogger. Best wishes

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  13. Agree word to word with your Namrota! Extremely well written and exudes the message very well. All the best :)

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    Replies
    1. Thank you very much... I am glad you agree with it :)

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  14. Crisp...perfect and hitting the right marks...cheers Namrota. All the best for the results.

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