ONE BILLION VOTERS – LAUNCHED!

On 15th April 2009 Janaagraha’s One Billion Voters programme was launched in New Delhi. One Billion Voters (OBV), is a non-partisan campaign to facilitate informed civic participation among Indian citizens. By providing them with a platform and enabling tools, OBV aims to improve the functioning of Indian democracy. This is an initiative of Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy.

At the event a panel discussion on “Young India, and the Role of Youth in Shaping its Democracy” was held. The panelists included Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra (Film maker and One Billion Voters' advisory Board Member), Barkha Dutt (Group Editor, English News, NDTV), Hemant Sachdev (Joint Managing Director, Microsoft India Pvt. Ltd.) and Rahul Bose (Film Actor). Issues like the uniqueness of the upcoming elections and whether information is key to participation for todays generation were discussed amongst others.

One Billion Voters aims to enable youth across India to register for voting and make an informed choice about their candidates. The first leg of the campaign i.e. enabling voter registrations has been achieved through Jaago Re! One Billion Votes. Conducted in partnership with Tata Tea, the campaign resulted in over 500,000 online voter registrations in 6 months.

Closer to general elections 2009, One Billion Voters aims to do the following activities for 5 cities – Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and Bangalore:

1. Enable citizens to “Make an informed choice” by creating and disseminating comprehensive information on all candidates standing for elections

2. Undertake ‘Get Out The Vote’ (GOTV) drives by mobilizing and enabling citizen volunteers to conduct door-to-door drives around their polling booths.

The campaign aims to do this by leveraging modern technology, building partnerships and creating a social network of voters who are passionate about better governance in India, and are willing to engage with the political system to create a change.

To learn more log onto: http://www.myobv.org