Only one face in the huddle of grey hair is familiar: actor Roshan Seth. The others are prominent in their respective fields—corporates Subodh Bhargava, Promod Chawla and Jai Kumar, columnist Prem Shankar Jha, former professor and IIM-A director Samuel Paul, Gen Vinod Saighal, a former military attache to France and Benelux, industrialist R.K. Somany, and the only woman in the group, ad professional Tara Sinha. “All of us here are over 65 years and when you’re getting on in age, you aren’t blind to what’s happening around you,” says Chawla.

One of NNFI’s activities is to digitally network 250 NGOs and 10,000 individuals, keeping them informed of government policies and activist movements in different parts of the country. “The mailing list just keeps growing. Since our inception seven years ago, we’ve sent out 18,000 group e-mails,” says Gen Saighal, adding that NNFI’s annual budget of Rs 1.5 lakh is largely spent on digital networking. The information often hits bull’s eye: Chawla recalls that a youth from Bihar once told him how angry he is every time he reads the e-mails about corruption in the government. “You can bet that when he votes in 2009, he will select his candidate carefully,” says Chawla.

The NNFI has been involved in a long campaign to ensure clean government. “It is atrocious that 30 per cent of MLAs and MPs are criminals. Doesn’t a country of more than a billion have enough honest people to lead it? But the changes must come from within as well as without: Political parties must be forced to weed out the criminal elements themselves,” says Sinha.

To that effect, the organisation won a huge victory in 2003 when the movement to demand that political candidates declare their assets, liabilities, educational qualifications and criminal records during elections and that these disclosures be made public—started by IIM-A professors and People’s Union for Civil Liberties and networked by NNFI—was upheld by the apex court. “We went to court, met then President A.P.J. Kalam and used the media and Internet to harness the power of the people. Political parties opposed the move strongly but the Supreme Court ruled in favour of the disclosures,” says Chawla. Active citizenship won the day. As Gen Saighal points out, “If you want good governance, you have to become a part of good governance.”