City Citizenship based on Respect for Diversity & A Belief in Unity –

Cities with I-RULE :

1. Internet – Localized, socially-responsible internet content for each city in its local language.

2. Research – Research based on evolutionary data and science with a focus on economic geography (not on political history and people/dynasties) & employment.

3. Urbanization – Bio-regional City Planning - Interdependence of Culture and Nature.

4. Language – Diversity prioritized by language (and not by political geography nor ethnicity).

5. Education – Trans-disciplinary, value-embedding and holistic education. Creating curiosity for lifelong learning & continuous skill upgrade.

“Rang” means Colours & the prefix “Pra” refers to its Origin/Base. Together, “Prarang” is a lesser used Sanskrit name which translates to “ Basics of Colours”.
We know that the 3 Colours – Blue, Yellow & Red – are the base colours from which all other colours originate. This reflects in our logo. The Prarang logo represents the – Colours of the Diversity in the Unity of India

The Elephant - Allegorically, the Asian Elephant has often meant India historically. Rather than the modern day national boundaries of India country, Prarang is better represented in image & imagination by this borderless concept, beyond political borders.

With over Six hundred-thousand villages & Nine thousand towns & cities even in the modern country of India today, no individual can ever hope to visit & understand all parts of India, in one lifetime. Based on one’s own experiences, India means different things to not just visitors but even different people living within it. The old Indian parable of the Blind men & the Elephant, reminds us about the dangers of fragmented knowledge & the need to balance subjectivity & objectivity.

“Seeing the entire Elephant” (in all his colours & splendor), is true “ Unity in Diversity”. This can only be achieved through borderless (global) meta-disciplinary & holistic education. Prarang is that Basic-Colours Elephant. As it walks across the cities , towns & villages of India spreading its multiple colours, it means to transform all who see it, into Smarter Citizens

The Prarang R&D Process – Reach. Reorganize. Re-Connect

Prarang has a unique research methodology which relies on a thorough analysis of each City/Town selected, in terms of (i) the evolution of the City, (ii) what Work/occupations of the people of the City currently work in, (iii)the co-relation between each type of Work & the Natural surroundings & the historical evolution of the City, (iv) and the diversity of the Citizens living in the City. A complete review of Work, Place & Citizenship results in defining a bio-regional focus for the City. Next, a dedicated Researcher & Daily Content Writer is assigned to the City, and Advisors are appointed on a “City Council” to advise & quarterly review the “City Content Calendar” used by the Researcher of the City, to create “Daily Knowledge & Topical Posts” of Global Knowledge, localized for the City & shared daily through social media & the android App.
The selection of the Knowledge posts on different streams/disciplines is a balance that is achieved keeping the bio-regional focus of the location & following a 7 step methodology leading to the eventual Daily Knowledge post. The daily post is tagged & classified into the City’s knowledge repository of Culture & Nature, a 60 section store-house designed to support intelligent retrieval for the future needs of Smarter Citizens.

This 7 step Process has Step-4 in the middle, as the heart of the process : We actually create the content of each Knowledge Post from 3 distinct components - Data, Images & Text ( Books & Digital) sources. The bio-regional focus document & the
City Council advisors then assist in defining the 4th component i.e. “ Intent” , before the content-writer creates the daily post.

Prarang is a start-up venture currently being incubated by the Shabda Chitra research team, based in Noida, near New Delhi, India. It will be floated as a separate private limited company in Mid 2021, after the completion of the pilot venture in 4 cities. For more information & contacts of the Shabda Chitra team, please see website – http://www.shabdachitra.com

Advisors – Several Urban/City Planning experts, Sociologists, Government Officials, Management Professionals, Journalists & Artists have contributed to the Prarang idea through their inputs. We will invite some of them to join us as Advisors & participate in formal quarterly reviews in 2018, as we launch Prarang as new company. Please watch this space for the name announcement.

“ I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library.” – Jorge Luis Borges Can all the knowledge of the world be contained in one place if we could collect all the books ever written, images ever printed & maps ever created, in one library ? Borges imagines just such a place in his story " The Library of Babel” , an endless library which contains not just all the books ever made but even books yet to be made ( in the future). In another story “Aleph” , Borges stretches this imagination even further where man in his quest for understanding the building blocks of language itself, writes books with just one letter of the alphabet. The absurdity of it makes clear that – “Complete knowledge of the universe is impossible for man to collect or to curate“.

We aim to curate a Prarang Museum showcasing the Story of the Indian Civilization through the evolution of its Cities & Towns, along its Rivers. Such a river civilization museum will be built to show-case India’s Culture & Nature, on the outskirts of New Delhi, along the River Ganga. While this museum on the river will take a few years to build, the objects & library to be housed inside the museum, have already been collected by Prarang founding team members over the past 25 years. It is this unique library of books, coins, statues, maps, comics, stamps, posters, carpets, furniture, textiles, fossils, stones & other collectibles relating to Indian cities, which forms the USP ( unique selling proposition) of Prarang’s daily knowledge posts. The researchers at Shabda Chitra research center have access to this comprehensive library of books & historical objects on India. This keeps a vital “hand & heart” connection alive for the Prarang team members. We do not re-cycle existing digital information already available on the internet, for our research work but have our own collection of copy-right free images & antiquarian source books, to search from. Merely translation is not what Prarang does. We research with the intent of writing for the benefit of a specific city’s reader, fully aware of his linguistic level, education level & economic need.

• Address :- office #25, 11th floor, The i-Thum, A-40 Sector 62, Noida(U.P), India 201301
• E-Mail Contact :- query@prarang.in
• Phone Contact :- +91-1204561284