The pre-2017 electoral funding system was far from perfect, but distortions like electoral bonds exacerbate the problem The Supreme Court, in a landmark decision on February 15, declared the electoral bonds scheme introduced by the previous Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government in 2017, unconstitutional. The judgment has stirred a hornet’s nest with all kinds […]
Focusing the entire discussion using the term EVMs to actually refer to a group of three machines tends to confuse a lot of lay voters who still think that the Electronic Voting Machine is being discussed. I have been an observer of the electoral system in the country for over two decades. I have attended […]
The immediate cause of concern arises from the recent public utterances by two of the seniormost members of the highest judiciary in the land. I write this piece with a heavy heart and a grave sense of responsibility. This is because I am writing about the Sentinel on the Qui Vive, a phrase etched in Indian […]
A lot of us seem to have forgotten that political parties, elections and democracy existed even before 2017 – and so before the existence of electoral bonds. Though introduced in 2017, Electoral Bonds (EBs) seem to have become a popular topic in the national discourse ever since the recent three-day hearing in the Supreme Court […]
The fact that the land legally belonged to the Akhil Bharat Sarva Seva Sangh, founded by Vinoba Bhave in 1948, was just a minor irritant for the powers that be. Usurped is the appropriate word for what happened in Varanasi on July 22, 2023, when the Government of India, through the instrumentality of the Indian […]
It is incumbent on civil society to stand by them as they now take on this legal struggle which may well turn out to be a marathon. Read the following conversation between a young woman, nine days short of her 27th birthday, born and brought up by a single, widowed, cancer-survivor mother in a village in Haryana, a […]
There are three elements of today’s political culture that possibly explain “the phenomenon of ‘Modi can do no wrong’”. Professor Suhas Palshikar, one of the leading political scientists in the country, recently wrote about “nine failures and blemishes” of the current government at the Centre and said that these do not seem to have brought any discredit to […]
A set of events reported in the media suggests that no court is willing to hear the allegations against the BJP MP and WFI chief. The question in the title admits to many answers. The purpose of this piece is not to provide an answer or many answers. It is to present before the readers a set […]
Prime Minister Modi inaugurating the building is a violation of constitutional principles. Given that President Droupadi Murmu has been steadfast in correctly performing her public duties, this violation leaves her with just one honourable option. Hundreds of thousands of citizens celebrated Droupadi Murmu’s election to the highest office in the land on July 21, 2022. We rejoiced […]
The interview with Satya Pal Malik gives a fair idea of what Malik was being asked to be silent about, but what is of great concern is who asked him to stay silent and what could be the implications of his staying silent and not staying silent. The concern arises because the implications could be […]