This is unique. This is amazing. This is Open Constitution.
Truly, by the people, of the people, for the people.
Iceland, after suffering a huge setback in the financial crisis of 2008, embarked on change. A fundamental change was engineered on its constitution. It was rewritten. What is more amazing is the way they decided to go about it. A group of 950 people were randomly selected to brainstorm on what the constitution of Iceland should be. The earlier constitution was inherited from Denmark in 1944.
Using social media, they invited people participation, got feedback and evolved it in a model referred to as crowd sourcing. On 29th July 2011, the Bill was presented by the Constitutional Council to the Speaker. The new constitution revolves around 3 primary themes.
Distribution of power, transparency and responsibility.
Isn't that what India wants too? The difference between Iceland and India was the nature in which crowd sourcing was done. In, India, opinion is rarely invited from the people. It is movements such as the Lokpal that enables the government to look at the crowd at large. This is in stark contrast to what Iceland has shown. How in principle it is possible using modern age collaboration tools to get greater people participation in governance.
Open Governance. That's what it's all about. The means for India would be different as the majority of our population is not literate, does not use the Internet or leverages the power of social media for collaboration. The world is changing. There is nothing that stops us from creating such a collaboration platform.
Indiabook? To be linked with the National UID project? That could be one way. And mechanisms to invite public opinion through kiosks set at post offices and railway stations. That should be possible. Or create apps for the wide range of mobile devices in the market. Or perhaps involve NGO's with mobile devices to invite public opinion from people who do not have access.
India desperately needs crowd sourcing of ideas. To get transparency and better governance and to make the people truly believe that Democracy is after all...
For the People, By the People, Of the people.
Truly, by the people, of the people, for the people.
Iceland, after suffering a huge setback in the financial crisis of 2008, embarked on change. A fundamental change was engineered on its constitution. It was rewritten. What is more amazing is the way they decided to go about it. A group of 950 people were randomly selected to brainstorm on what the constitution of Iceland should be. The earlier constitution was inherited from Denmark in 1944.
Using social media, they invited people participation, got feedback and evolved it in a model referred to as crowd sourcing. On 29th July 2011, the Bill was presented by the Constitutional Council to the Speaker. The new constitution revolves around 3 primary themes.
Distribution of power, transparency and responsibility.
Isn't that what India wants too? The difference between Iceland and India was the nature in which crowd sourcing was done. In, India, opinion is rarely invited from the people. It is movements such as the Lokpal that enables the government to look at the crowd at large. This is in stark contrast to what Iceland has shown. How in principle it is possible using modern age collaboration tools to get greater people participation in governance.
Open Governance. That's what it's all about. The means for India would be different as the majority of our population is not literate, does not use the Internet or leverages the power of social media for collaboration. The world is changing. There is nothing that stops us from creating such a collaboration platform.
Indiabook? To be linked with the National UID project? That could be one way. And mechanisms to invite public opinion through kiosks set at post offices and railway stations. That should be possible. Or create apps for the wide range of mobile devices in the market. Or perhaps involve NGO's with mobile devices to invite public opinion from people who do not have access.
India desperately needs crowd sourcing of ideas. To get transparency and better governance and to make the people truly believe that Democracy is after all...
For the People, By the People, Of the people.
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