Indian Elections and Bollywood: Abhishek Bachchan
By Kamla Bhatt • Mar 28th, 2009Category: Books, Movies, Music, Televison, Bollywood, India, Life, Video, Web 2.0, YouTube Videos
Change is in the air in India as the country gears itself for its general elecions and a new government that will be formed in June. Many political observers and pundits are busy underscoring the fact that is India’s first digital elections. Well, in a way it is. In the previous elections held in 2004 political parties did use Internet and digital tools, but in the intervening years a lot of water has flown under the digital bridge and the digital landscape has changed. Add to this the suberb digital strategy crafted by President Obama’s team to reach out and raise capital from American voters by harnessing the power of the Internet.
In India it is not so much the the political parties, but tech-savvy (mostly young) people that are harnessing the Internet to appeal to young Indians to vote. There are non-partisan organizations like VoteIndia and Jaagore, who are using tools like YouTube, and Twitter to reach out to 700 million people that will go to polls from mid-April through mid-May.
What is also interesting is that young Bollywood filmmakers and actors are pitching in to do their bit to get people to vote. In this video clip Abhishek Bachchan urges the young voters to go out and vote and points out only 16 percent actually vote.