~ Crowdfund legal fees to provide equal access to justice ~
India 4th August 2016 – Bangalore has seen the start of some great ideas and startups. From ordering groceries online to buying car insurance, startups in Bangalore are aggressively churning out innovative consumer solutions. But not all startups are selling you things. Some are working on bettering our society. One such startup is Azadi.in, a crowdfunding website launched recently to tackle social issues.
Speaking about the unique initiative from their office in the IIM Bangalore campus, Mr. Sidharth Viayan, Cofounder, Azadi.in says “Today thanks to the internet we are coming to know of government inadequacies with ease. Concerned citizens talk about it on social media and maybe even sign a petition. But that's about all we can do without turning into a full time activist. It's a real limitation. With Azadi.in we want to address the general public's inability to do anything solid. We wanted to make a platform through which we can encourage and support the actual change makers working in their particular domains of concern and we help crowdfund their work. We work issue to issue and unlike a blanket contribution to an NGO, each rupee raised has an agenda and is spent only for the particular cause. We require the change makers to post updates to contributors in stipulated time intervals. This increases accountability in the change makers as well and the funders can see the developments they are behind.”
Talking about the first campaign, Mr. Radhakrishnan, Cofounder says, “Our first campaign is by Common Cause, one of India's most respected NGO founded by HD Shourie 3 decades back. They’ve been involved in ground breaking interventions, their most famous being the cancellation and re auction of the 2G spectrum in 2011 & re auction of captive coal blocks in 2012. Conservative estimates of the money India saved through the intervention so far is 3,00,000 crores & that is a figure poised to increase in the coming years. Now Common Cause is preparing to lobby to implement the Right to Education act. In 2009 RTE was made a fundamental right and made it the Government's obligation to provide free & compulsory education to children between age of 6 & 14. The act gave the government 3 years to achieve the targets but in reality we are far from these goals. Common Cause is set to lobby for the right and will approach the Supreme Court if advocacy does not work. “
About Azadi.in
Azadi.in is a crowd funding platform where you can come together with your community to build support and share the costs of issues that affect your community. If you have an issue you feel passionately about, it’s a way to spread the word and try to get funding and support. It’s a rare thing to be passionate enough about an issue to take it all the way. You shouldn’t have to do it alone. Azadi.in is incubated in NSRCEL, IIM Bangalore .
Founding Team : Radhakrishnan Ram Manohar, Sidharth Vijayan, Praveen Paul.
Stalvart John, VP Operations.