Vivek's Info

Useful links

Technology for Transparency Network |: A collection of projects that use technology for promoting transparency. The case studies can be accessed by the country.

MyNeta – Candidate Affidavits for Elections in India: Information on all Members of Parliaments of India based on the affidavits they file with the election commission. Visitors are permitted to point out inconsistencies between the given information and the case on the ground.

Bus Routes.in: Website providing information on bus routes in Madras using information on routes gathered by crowd sourcing.

Think You Know What Ushahidi Is? Think Again | iRevolution: Article on the Ushahidi platform, what it is and how it could be used by Patrick Meiyer. Comments to the article are worth reading.

Crisis and Interaction Design: Presentation on the use of Crowd-sourcing information and tips on designing a good system.

Articles on the UID Project: A collection of articles that are largely critical of the Unique ID Project.

Government 2.0 Taskforce, Australia: A task force set up by Australian government to examining ways of making proactive disclosure of digitised information, to promote digital innovations in government, and promote online engagement.

Articles Questioning Aadhaar: A collection of articles that are critical of the Unique ID Project, as the very name of the website suggests.

Open data catalogue: A spreadsheet containing links to websites around the world providing open government data.

Government Records Branch of North Carolina: Contains detailed formats, guidelines and other information on public records and its management that is useful for RTI activists.

“Mobile Vigeye” Complaint system by CVC India: A mobile application developed by the Central Vigilance Commissioner of India through which individuals can submit complaints to the commission. The application includes a facility for the user to record audio, video and also write notes in order to submit complaints. Sounds like an interesting application that could be put to imaginative use by citizens from whom bribes are demanded.

iGovernment Working Papers – University of Manchester: Working papers on information technology for the government, produced at the University of Manchester.

Open Government Guide: A complete compendium of information on every state’s open records and open meetings laws in the United States. Each state’s section is arranged according to a standard outline, making it easy to compare laws in various states.

Helping Countries Combat Corruption: The Role of the World Bank: A World Bank publication outlining the measures advocated by the bank to combat corruption in bank funded projects, and in countries supported by the Bank overall.

Sunshine Review: Sunshine Review is a non-profit organization dedicated to state and local government transparency in the United States. The Sunshine Review wiki collects and shares transparency information and uses a 10-point Transparency Checklist to evaluate the content of every state and more than 5,000 local government websites.

Corruption & Integrity Improvement Initiatives in Developing Countries: A book on corruption and anti-corruption initiatives by UNDP with case studies from different countries, along with a discussion of anti-corruption initiatives.

Journal of E-Government: It is “a new professional journal focusing on the application and practice of e-government in its broadest sense

Electronic Journal of E-Government: Publishes research on topics relevant to the design, evaluation, implementation and management of e-Government/e-Governance, e-Democracy, e-Participation and other dimension of this field of study

Not all that unique by Reetika Khera: UID has limited scope for reducing corruption, even if it works as intended; but as things stand. Development and reduction of corruption are used as a smokescreen for what is mainly a project driven by security establishment and corporate interests, argues the author.

A Unique Identity Bill by Usha Ramanathan: Elaborates Human Rights, Civil Liberty and technological criticisms advanced on the UID Project and argues that the bill introduced in the Parliament of India on UID does not address the concerns that have been raised.