tldr: We live-tweeted Parliament because it kept getting adjourned and we used to care about government and things like that.

How it works:

2 of my friends were LAMP fellows (smart kids who work with Parliamentarians, to help build a better India etc.) The other one was a socially aware engineer/scientist who was constantly frustrated that Parliament kept adjourning (it was a bad year). We started a Twitter handle to live-tweet Parliament.

We were funny, we were sharp, we cared. It was a whole scene.

You had to be there. MPs retweeted us, the twitter folks loved us.

Unfortunately, we didn’t scale it up and had to shut it down after about a year, because real-life got in the way, but Times of India wrote about us, so YAY?

Why it’s cool:

The handle actually started as a joke and then showballed into something with real personality. We handled DMs from media giants, minor politicians and even bangalore engineers who didn’t know what was happening but wanted to be in on the zeitgeist. For a brief period, we felt like we were doing very good work.

What I learned:

Sunlight is a great disinfectant. Someone has to watch the actual business of governance happen. Back then it was us girls whenever we had the time. Now? Perhaps we use AI.

New tech I explored:

No real tech. We had a twitter handle and a website, and we did some cross-posting and played w Twitter APIs. Nothing revolutionary.

Next up/Wishlist:

Build an agent that ACTUALLY WATCHES PARLIAMENT AND LIVE-TWEETS IT. Soon.