India Uncut
This blog has moved to its own domain. Please visit IndiaUncut.com for the all-new India
Uncut and bookmark it. The new site has much more content and some new sections, and you can read about them here and here. You can subscribe to full RSS feeds of all the sections from here.
This blogspot site will no longer be updated, except in case of emergencies, if the main site suffers a prolonged outage. Thanks - Amit.
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
Dakshina Kannada police, take a bow
We often complain about how government servants are never, in practice, as accountable as they should be. And about how information, the biggest tool a common citizen can have, is such a scarce commodity when it comes to government. Well, I take my (imaginary) hat and bow before the Dakshina Kannada police, of the Mangalore/Udupi districts, for starting a blog. Here it is.
Their blog aims to keep people updated on important information, and it's an excellent example for the rest of India's lumbering government machinery. It sends the message: We are accountable to you, and we're going to tell you what we are doing with your money, so that you can decide if we're doing our job or not. Only local residents can comment on how well their blog serves that purpose, but the very act of putting that blog online acknowledges accountability, and that's an important signal to send. Whoever thought of this and implemented it, well done.
(Link via email from Arun Simha.)
PS: May I also humbly suggest that a wiki would be an even more effective interface of getting information online, updated and easily accessible. The format in a blog, of sequential posts one on top of another, makes it much harder to input some kinds of information, and difficult for a user to find old, dispersed data.
Their blog aims to keep people updated on important information, and it's an excellent example for the rest of India's lumbering government machinery. It sends the message: We are accountable to you, and we're going to tell you what we are doing with your money, so that you can decide if we're doing our job or not. Only local residents can comment on how well their blog serves that purpose, but the very act of putting that blog online acknowledges accountability, and that's an important signal to send. Whoever thought of this and implemented it, well done.
(Link via email from Arun Simha.)
PS: May I also humbly suggest that a wiki would be an even more effective interface of getting information online, updated and easily accessible. The format in a blog, of sequential posts one on top of another, makes it much harder to input some kinds of information, and difficult for a user to find old, dispersed data.
