e-trailblazer

Sat, May 10 12:50 AM

Looks like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton's e-campaigns are in good hands. This could come as a surprise, but the same pair of hands is managing the Republicans as well.

Ravi Singh, the 35-year-old Indian-American who is in Delhi to set up an R and amp;D lab and to nudge Indian politicians to get on a web page, explains why the all-party clientele should not be puzzling. "For the American elections, I am running 634 online campaigns.

There is no conflict of interest here. It's just a sharing of the same technology, that's all" says Singh.

"Indian politicians here don't get that, they feel there's some special sauce to win elections." Singh, an insider to the campaigns of the two most talked about people in the world right now, is the model of discretion.

He won't bean-spill; when he rolls out the figures, they flatter: "Both Obama and Clinton," says the CEO of ElectionMall.com, "have traffic of about a crore per day on their websites.

The internet helped Obama, not the most famous name in history, to tap non-traditional resources. Youngsters send him five dollars at midnight online".

Hillary Clinton, too, got more than 10 million dollars online in less than a day, he adds. Indian politicians, suggests Singh, could take a leaf out of Obama's book - he does a better job online than Hillary because of the technology he uses.

"He has the common touch. Even if you have no interest in taxes, you'd listen to what he has to say.

" And Hillary? "She has a professional appeal. You'd see her and want her to run your company.

" Internet and the Indian elections, Singh feels, could go a long way. This basically means that a politician has to be constantly available and accessible to the people.

So what's the problem? Are our politicians not responsive enough? "No. The problem is," says Singh, "they want my services for free.

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