Strengthening Democracy, Governance and Development

The pre-election stage of the campaign - called "Jago Janmat" - included 5 phases:

1. Samvaad Setu (Dialogue Bridge): public dialogues with opinion leaders.
2. Jago Janmat Yatra (Awaking Public Opinion) - Beginning on November 21 2008, this 10-day process revolved around creating a public and political participation dialogue around the manifesto/pledge (see below). Rajasthan Patrika created pamphlets, posters, and banners, travelling by van a total of 15,840 kilometers to 1,628 towns and using loudspeakers to educate people and motivate them to vote for young, educated candidates with clean backgrounds.
3. Chunavi Adalat (Election Court): people's election court in deep pockets of the state.
4. Pratibaddhata Patra (Written Pledge) - Candidates were asked to sign a manifesto pledging ideal behaviour, active participation in the legislature, active development work in the constituency, etc. Photographs of candidates who had signed the written pledge appeared strategically in Rajasthan Patrika.
5. Chunav Visheshaank (Special Supplement) - An election desk was set up on November 4 in preparation for the December 4 Assembly Elections. Six teams of reporters produced special pages within the daily paper from November 7–11. Included in this supplement were facts, graphics, political cartoons, a slogan (poll nagada), and advertising. In addition, the results of Patrika's speech tracking were included. This was a novel experiment and experience for the paper. Reporters examined the verbatim speeches of the candidates and conducted key word analysis, identifying the unique phrases and providing references.

The post-election period - called "Loktantra ki Pathshala" (School of Democracy) - involved 3 phases:

1. Performance and Evaluation of Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) in Assembly and publication of report card
2. Debate and discussion on legislative reform agenda in editorial pages
3. Publication of the readers' response on MLA report card-ranking and on the reform agenda

Specifically, Rajasthan Patrika conducted research to evaluate individual performance of the representatives in the assembly from the beginning of the 13th Assembly session. A panel of experts selected a 10-point scale of indicators and carried out the assessment.

On August 27 2009, the paper published rankings and report cards for 197 MLAs. Each MLA and his or her constituency were identified. In addition, the issue demanding attention, related news clip(s), summary, questions of concern, action suggestion(s), and action(s) taken were detailed.

The paper also published a discussion on the legislative reform agenda (on August 28 2009), debate on the editorial page (August 29 2009), feedback on the rankings and report cards (September 2 2009). On September 5 2009, figures from 900 respondents were compiled in the main edition structured around. All editions included introductory text, a cartoon, and a theme to all editions - structured around a set of 5 questions.

Grassroots development in constituency/MLAs' leadership and performance for development - Patrika is in the planning phase of organising democracy dialogues at select representative Panchayats of each constituency. The format is meant to be vibrant - with spirited participation of public representatives, administrators, the public, and the MLA - and will include performances, presentations, and discussions.

Democracy and Governance.

Rajasthan Patrika, a Hindi daily, has been published since 1956. Bhuvnesh Jain, Deputy Editor, said, "Rajasthan Patrika has been working towards strengthening the democratic roots over the years and campaigning rigorously so that only deserving and result-oriented political parties and candidates are given the opportunity to work for the development of the state and the society. The paper has also been reminding people to do justice to their duties as citizens of India by exercising their right to vote in the interest of democracy."