An online encyclopedia to know your netas

They rule the country, they make the laws, sometimes they dodge those very laws, but how much do we really know about the politicians running our country?

They rule the country, they make the laws, sometimes they dodge those very laws, but how much do we really know about the politicians running our country?

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A new site — www.netapedia.in — started by a group of Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay (IIT-B) students and alumni, aims to be a one-stop destination for answers on everything political.

A forum for information about our politicians and the country’s political system, the site, launched on October 13 last year, has seen 21,000 unique visitors so far.

The site has information on elected leaders, the votes they polled, their assets, and development efforts, among other things. The information has been distilled from various sources including the Election Commission website and Member of Parliament Local Area of Development (MPLAD) reports.

“We felt that this kind of information about the country’s politicians and political system should be available to people in an online, user-friendly format,” said Sidharth Mishra, one of the founders of the site, who graduated from IIT-B last year.

So far the nine-member team, scattered across the country, have been sourcing material themselves and putting it up on the website. In the future they are aiming for a Wikipedia-like “community-driven model” where users would be able to contribute and update the site.

Other plans include a “compare your neta” tool for people to evaluate one candidate against another and a Facebook-style timeline on every neta’s history and achievements.