Indias biggest youth movement to help set the agenda for 2014 General Elections launched

27th July 2013: Citizens for Accountable Governance (CAG) announced the launch of its next initiative, Manthan: Indias biggest youth movement to help set the agenda for 2014 General Elections on 25th July, 2013. Manthan aims to reach out and engage about 1 crore students directly and about 9 crore youth indirectly over the course of next two months. Manthan encourages the youth to participate in the national political discourse by deliberating on 14 themes of critical national importance. The themes below have been earmarked on the basis of online responses and expert inputs on various social media platforms. 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) 7) 8) 9) 10) 11) 12) 13) 14) Realizing the growth potential of north-east Universalizing access to quality primary healthcare Ensuring safety and empowerment of women Improving reach and efficiency of the Public Distribution System Increasing the employability of youth Boosting agricultural productivity Reducing malnutrition Ensuring expeditious and timely justice to all Ensuring world class civic amenities in urban India Promoting research and innovation Introducing electoral reforms to reduce the influence of money and muscle power in politics Providing clean drinking water and proper sanitation facility to all Enhancing the quality of primary education Providing social welfare to informal sector workers

The movement shall run in three phases. The first phase involves organizing regional conventions in various colleges and universities across the nation. These conventions will facilitate the interaction between youth and key opinion makers from social, political and business domains. They will be chosen by the students themselves through in-campus polls. The second phase will be a nationwide competition to be held in more than 5500 colleges and universities. A panel of experts across various domains shall adjudicate the presentations. The best submissions per theme will be presented in front of representatives of two principal national political parties at the culmination event. This will be held at Thyagaraj Sports Complex, New Delhi on the 2nd of October, 2013. CAG invites interested students to register for Manthan at www.indiancag.org/manthan. For further information contact: Shubhrastha, +91 9687 664042, media@indiancag.org About CAG: Citizens for Accountable Governance (CAG) is a not-for-profit organization formed by a group of young professionals with the aim to usher in accountable governance in India.