according to t r raghunandan, from the ministry of panchayati raj (local governance), speaking at the "IT for change" workshop in bangalore today, india has: - 233251 elected village panchayats (local government councils) - 2657112 elected representatives (37% women, against 33% reserved seats; 43% women in karnataka, 54% women in bihar!!!)
this means india has "more elected women representatives in india than the total number of democratically elected women representatives in the rest of the world." also, "it used to take a 10% bribe from a village panchayat to get its budget transferred from the state government" - this was apparently solved by a piece of software which automatically calculates each village's budget, transfers the money and publicly posts the amount transferred. -rishab
