Tarun Dua

1. Ideology:-
Free Market and laissez faire. Rule of law. The public resources should be committed for better regulation, and better public goods viz. security, courts, Roads/Highways, municipal water supply, electricity and foster free and fair competition in sectors like Education, Telecom and Healthcare without undue burden of regulation and bureaucratic interference and incompetence. The rights of consumers are best protected by a justice system that is not clogged. Let class action style suits take care of consumer interests.
2. Engagement:-
It doesn't matter which party the elected representative belongs to. Most politicians in India have no ideology anyway. Educated classes through resident welfare associations and other civil society fronts should engage regularly with the elected representatives. Most elected representatives except a few incompetent ones are happy to engage and try and push things to the advantage of their constituents. Monthly reminders( phone/SMS/e-mail) on what the elected representatives needs to deliver on can go a long way.
3. Collective voting:-
Choose the best man for the job without worrying about the party(as long as a party's agenda doesn't oppose liberalization we are good), if the previous elected representative was happy to engage and executed well then give her another chance if not seek change. But it is important to vote and as a collective block.
4. Communicate on the cloud:-
SMSGupShup.com is not just for college kids. Use the nearby park to meet once a month on a Sunday. Its easy enough to send an SMS one mobile per family to schedule or call meetings or administrative dues to resident welfare associations.
E-mail groups on Yahoo! or Google for those who would prefer to get an e-mail instead of an SMS. Lets put our elected on notice either they can learn to answer our e-mails and SMS'es or they can go to the dustbin of history. Yes we see political parties spending money on Google ads for one way communication through their websites, its not enough.
5. The urban tilt:-
India is rapidly urbanizing and at 25% of the peoples of India belonging to the educated classes it is time to exercise our rightful influence for good on the governance and politics. The days of rotten boroughs our medieval villages full of grasping paternalistic communities with un-healthy concentration of power amongst the 'dabang' caste groups is over.
6. Its our money, we need to throw some more time behind it to see it goes farther:-
We as taxpayers have a right to know and direct how this money is being spent. The educated classes when they spend their money, even very small amounts wants value for money from private businesses but is there any reason why we shouldn't account for value of money for every naya paisa paid as taxes(which by the way happens to be as high as 50% of our income in direct and indirect taxes). I am sure if a retired educated class person were to calculate taxes paid till date factoring in inflation the figures for each family runs into atleast a crore of rupees.
7. The logjam:-
The governance structure is oriented not towards fair distribution of public goods but adhoc distribution to those who can shout the loudest. The times of having dharnas and satyagrahas is over. The logjam of parallel structures in government each with the capability to block execution of projects funded by public money is a mess that the elected representatives need to fix. If they can fix it great otherwise let us put them on notice. They need to fire the bureaucrats who can't execute projects of importance. I believe there are relevant supreme court judgements that point out that government employees can be fired for in-competence without redress.