mesn.org - What is MESN?

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What is MESN?

Mumbai Environmental Social Network is a public policy think tank committed to enabling Mumbai's efforts at a better environment and social structure by undertaking research, providing accurate and systematically arranged information on the various issues and by bringing the various stakeholders closer through various platforms. We believe that information dissemination is the fundamental basis for any action.

The Mumbai Environmental Social Network website aims at being a one-stop destination for news and information regarding environmental and social issues in Mumbai city. The primary goal of this site is to provide a centralised database that can be easily accessible by anyone as against having to chase disparate sources of information. The website is envisioned to act as an ideal starting point for research and updates.

Information as we all realise is one of the pillars of change. The lack of accurate information has permitted many of the excesses that are now showing their ugly manifestations in the city and the country. Unfortunately most of this information, which is public in nature, is hardly available to even the educated and resourceful citizen, much less to the unresourceful. Either the logistics of delivery make it difficult for this information to reach the masses or concerted efforts by vested interests prevent the information from being released. All in all we see a situation, which doesn’t seem to be very different than the feudal set-up the country suffered for centuries.

Only when accurate and systematically organised information is available to millions of people will truly participatory democracy emerge and accountability become the mainstream of administration. The Internet is the best medium of information dissemination today. The website is aimed at the aware and educated citizen who wants to do something for the city but is stymied in his/her efforts for want of information. Besides every year there are thousands of school and college students who have to do projects and frustratingly waste their time going from place to place looking for information.

Examples of the kind of issues for which information is being intended are:

Solid Waste Management	Slums and slum rehabilitation policies	Transport planning
Water Harvesting	Water supply	Parks and open spaces
Sewage disposal	Air Pollution	Education
Health	State of Public Health expenditure	BMC budgets
Town Planning	Land use	Public Interest Litigations