Veena Ramanna

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2009

Veena Ramanna

IndiaGoverns

New Delhi, Delhi, India

Community Improvement & Economic Development

The Bold Idea:

The Bold Idea: Change the nature of political discourse in India by providing constituency and Members of Parliament performance information to voters, citizen activists, and journalists.

Over the last decade, India has experienced steady economic growth. However, the terror attacks in Mumbai were a sad reminder of the failures of governance. The public mood following the attacks was one of anger against the failures of the political class. There is a deep divide between the political leadership and societal change that the voting Indian public seeks and the actions taken by the political leadership. In response to a question in a recent opinion survey about how important the caste of the candidate is in deciding their vote, over 90 percent of the voters polled said that it was not important. Instead, they pointed to core development needs such as better roads, water supply, electricity, education, health, and access to loans. In sharp contrast, an analysis of election speeches in the state elections held recently showed that over 85 percent of the words spoken at election rallies were rhetoric and less than 6 percent of the words focused on past performance.

IndiaGoverns focuses on collecting, analyzing, and organizing development data, such as investments in infrastructure and schools, and performance data in politically meaningful terms. IndiaGoverns then uses community partnerships, mobile phone technology, and the internet to disseminate the information to the electorate. IndiaGoverns also provides a mechanism for collecting citizens’ concerns and needs and providing this information to their elected officials.

Veena Ramanna pitching at Echoing Green Selection Weekend (May 2, 2009)

Biography:

Veena holds a Masters degree in Mathematics from the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay. She has held several senior positions in the private sector before following her passion in the development space two years ago. She feels that the best use of her skills would be to play a game-changing role in shifting the nature of political debate in India away from rhetoric to more substantive issues.

Moment of Obligation: What experiences led to the desire to start your own organization?
I came up with the core idea for IndiaGoverns when I was watching election debates in the recently concluded U.S. Presidential elections. I took a cue and decided to invest my time and resources to systematically track the speeches of politicians in the state elections in India. A quick analysis of the content of these speeches reinforced the need for IndiaGoverns. Rather than blame the competitive nature of politics that creates a race to the bottom, I believe that objective constituency level development data will shift the electoral discourse from mere rhetoric to more substantive issues.

Gall to Think Big: What has given you the ability to dream big and take on deeply entrenched social and difficult problems? (Such as experiences, skills, events, etc.)
I have had the privilege of studying in one of the best institutions in India. I have many years of management experience in India and abroad. I have had the opportunity to observe, interact and learn from the experiences of many organizations working for the societal betterment in India. I intend to use my skills and abilities to mobilize larger numbers of people to be engaged in addressing the problems of governance.

New and Untested: What's innovative about your new idea for social change?
IndiaGoverns aims to fundamentally change the nature of political discourse in India by making it more issue oriented rather than just rhetoric based. My innovation is to leverage the fact that politics is inherently competitive and that if specific usable information is available to politicians about performance and policy choices, then there is a huge incentive for both incumbents and opponents to use the data to debate on the specifics. Simultaneously, keeping citizens informed and mobilizing them to express their views will provide the much needed bottom-up pressure to bring about change.

Seeing Possibilities: What are the most important qualities to be a successful social entrepreneur?
There are three elements that are central for an entrepreneur to be successful. One is the passion, second is understanding the environment and relationships and third is the discipline to execute.

Which musical artists/albums get you going and keep you inspired?
I enjoy listening to Carnatic Classical Music. I like classical music by Dr. Balamurali Krishna.

What books do you recommend (pleasure, work and anything in between)?
I mostly read work related books. Of late I have been reading political biographies. Presently I am reading Behenji - A Political Biography of Mayawati.

Which websites do you visit often (work and/or personal)?

• nytimes.com
• bbc.co.uk
• indianexpress.com

What advice or quote do you keep close to your heart as a social change leader?
Discipline and focus on tasks that one has taken up is important for success.