Questions Worth Investigating
These questions represent information gaps in Guwahati's community infrastructure. The answers aren't easily accessible despite affecting daily life and civic participation. Understanding these patterns helps identify where information systems fail communities and can guide future investigative work.
Where do people in Guwahati have civil discourse about local issues?
Understanding where and how civic conversations happen reveals a lot about community engagement, accessibility of public dialogue, and the health of local democracy. This question asks: are there physical spaces where neighbors discuss ward-level problems, or has civic discourse moved entirely to WhatsApp groups and Facebook pages? Do traditional gathering spots like tea stalls still function as hyperlocal public forums, or have they been replaced by digital spaces that exclude people without internet access?
Beyond identifying the spaces themselves, this question probes deeper into who participates in these conversations and who gets excluded by language barriers, class dynamics, location, or digital literacy. It asks whether structured civic forums exist at the neighborhood level, or if conversations remain siloed within isolated groups without cross-pollination. Most critically, it questions how community concerns actually surface, escalate, and either reach decision-makers or fail to do so. Which forms of discourse actually lead to change, and which are merely performative? Understanding these patterns reveals power dynamics, information asymmetries, and opportunities for building more effective civic engagement infrastructure that serves all residents rather than just the most connected.
How do people in Guwahati discover new businesses, and what does advertising look like?
Mapping business discovery and advertising patterns reveals the city's information economy, digital divides, and how hyperlocal businesses compete for attention. This question explores the intersection of online and offline worlds: does someone find a new restaurant through Instagram food bloggers, Google Maps reviews, WhatsApp group recommendations, or simply by walking past and seeing a crowd? How do neighborhood grocers, street food vendors, and informal businesses get discovered when they lack advertising budgets or digital presence?
The question extends into examining what advertising actually looks like in Guwahati's context. Beyond the obvious billboards and social media ads, what role do auto-rickshaw advertising, local newspaper classifieds, FM radio spots, and community event sponsorships play? How effective are these channels for different types of businesses, and what's actually affordable for small enterprises versus large chains? The digital dimension raises additional questions about platform dependencies: how vulnerable are small businesses to algorithm changes on Google Maps, food delivery apps, or social media platforms? Which customer segments and business types get left out of online discovery entirely due to digital access barriers?
Understanding these patterns reveals economic power dynamics and shows what kinds of businesses thrive versus struggle based on their advertising capacity rather than product quality. It exposes the gap between community-driven discovery mechanisms—word of mouth, trusted recommendations, neighborhood networks—and commercial advertising platforms that favor businesses with marketing budgets. Investigating this helps identify opportunities for more equitable business ecosystems where quality and community value matter more than marketing spend.
Do government websites and apps in India actually serve the people they're meant to serve?
Government digital services have become mandatory infrastructure for essential functions—applying for permits, accessing subsidies, verifying documentation, paying utility bills, checking application status. Yet across Guwahati and India, people struggle with these platforms despite massive Digital India investments. The Assam State Portal, Guwahati Municipal Corporation website, and local utility services often feature broken links, inaccessible forms, and unclear navigation. National platforms for Aadhaar verification, GST filing, or PAN services layer additional complexity on top of already-stressed users. This question asks: what barriers do these government websites and apps actually create? The investigation reveals the gap between "citizen-centric design" rhetoric and lived experience. Unlike commercial platforms where users can switch to alternatives, government services are mandatory—residents have no choice but to navigate whatever interface exists, regardless of quality. Citizens bear the full cost of poor design while government departments face no accountability for usability failures.
Systematic investigation would expose four interconnected failure patterns: dark patterns that deceive users through hidden costs and confirmation friction, accessibility violations that exclude people using screen readers or assistive technologies, broken functionality including link rot and forms that fail to submit, and opacity around which private agencies actually build and maintain these platforms. This affects people with disabilities, non-English speakers, residents with slow internet connections, elderly users unfamiliar with digital interfaces, and anyone without a smartphone—groups already marginalized from civic participation. Investigation methods already exist: accessibility audits against WCAG standards, uptime monitoring to track service availability, app behavior analysis to understand data collection patterns, and RTI requests to identify vendor relationships. The government itself has published guidelines at guidelines.india.gov.in and doc.ux4g.gov.in which sites actually follow them? Potential outputs include accessibility scorecards for government services, uptime dashboards for essential platforms, compliance tracking against official standards, vendor accountability reports correlating contractors with quality outcomes, and dark pattern catalogs documenting deceptive design in government apps. These aren't just reports—they're tools for accountability. Community members can learn to perform accessibility audits, contribute to distributed uptime monitoring, and build pressure for improvements grounded in documented failures rather than general complaints.
Also see Accessibility of Government Websites in India — Centre for Internet and Society and How to make a great government website
How does the government communicate with citizens in Guwahati, and what information actually reaches people?
Understanding government-citizen communication reveals fundamental questions about whether governance happens to citizens or with them. Currently, things just happen regardless—roads get dug up, water supply gets cut, policies change—often without clear official communication. While social media influencers and news outlets may share information, this question focuses on official government communication: the authoritative source that should enable accountability and participation. Without accessible official information, citizens can't verify what's actually happening versus rumors, plan around scheduled disruptions, participate in public hearings or policy decisions, hold officials accountable with accurate facts, or exercise informed civic agency. Government shares (or should share) many types of updates: civic infrastructure work like road maintenance, water supply schedules, and garbage collection changes; public safety information like police advisories, flood warnings, and traffic alerts; and policy and governance matters like new regulations, public hearings, ward meetings, and budget allocations. The fundamental question becomes: can citizens meaningfully participate in governance when they lack access to official information about what's happening and why?
Examining official channels across all government levels—ward offices, police stations, Guwahati Municipal Corporation, and state government—reveals a complex and often inaccessible communication landscape. Official methods range from physical notice boards, public meetings, newspaper notices, and official gazettes to digital platforms like government websites, social media accounts, mobile apps, and email lists, along with traditional channels like FM radio announcements, vehicle-mounted speakers, and community liaison officers. Yet people often learn about government activities through an unofficial information economy: social media influencers, local news outlets, WhatsApp forwards, or word-of-mouth rather than official sources. This raises critical questions about what happens at each government level officially versus what citizens actually learn through informal channels. Accessibility gaps compound the problem: digital divides exclude those without internet access, smartphones, or digital literacy; language barriers affect those who don't read English or Assamese; literacy requirements lock out some entirely; physical accessibility of notice boards and meeting venues matters; and time barriers emerge when offices and meetings happen during working hours. Who gets systematically excluded from official information, and how does this exclusion affect their ability to participate in or even know about decisions affecting their lives?
Beyond identifying channels, this question probes whether official updates actually reach citizens who need them, or whether they're discovered too late. What's the gap between information being "officially published"—buried on a poorly maintained website, posted on an inaccessible notice board in a ward office—versus genuinely reaching people's awareness? Is communication one-way broadcasting, or does it enable two-way feedback where citizens can ask questions, report problems, or participate in decisions before they're finalized? What mechanisms exist for citizen response, and do they actually work, or are they performative? Are updates proactive, providing advance notice of planned work, or merely reactive, explaining after disruption has already occurred? What information remains hidden, inaccessible, or only available to those with political connections? The deeper significance of this question is whether governance architecture enables democracy or reinforces information asymmetries and power imbalances. Without accessible official information, people can't hold officials accountable or participate meaningfully; the reliance on unofficial channels creates a game of telephone where accuracy, timeliness, and completeness are uncertain; and when official channels fail, governance becomes something that happens behind closed doors while citizens scramble for rumors and secondhand information. Understanding these patterns reveals opportunities for building communication systems that serve genuine civic participation rather than just performative transparency.