This was interviewed by Gulam Jeelani. ADR co-founder Jagdeep Chhokar says that the Election Commission can conduct the revision exercise legally, but “that doesn’t mean you violate existing laws”. The Election Commission’s (EC) Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in poll-bound Bihar has triggered a political storm, with the opposition Congress dubbing it ‘a […]
The procedure specified for the revision violates existing legal provisions that the ECI has been following for a long time. The schedule is impractical. It might also result in the disenfranchisement of a substantial number of electors of Bihar. First, the facts. The current term of the Bihar state assembly ends on November 22, 2025. […]
Election Commission doesn’t share adequate voting-related information with people. That prevents a meaningful analysis of the electoral process. On June 8, this newspaper carried a report (‘Rahul’s attack on EC doesn’t match poll data, officials say bid to “defame”’) contradicting an op-ed on its Ideas Page (‘Match-fixing Maharashtra’, IE, June 7). The report was accompanied […]
AI risks distorting information but also holds untapped potential to improve electoral campaigns and processes. To this end, prebunking must be used by all stakeholders Bihar’s political landscape is gradually heating up in the wake of the upcoming Assembly polls with political parties crafting campaigns to woo voters. The campaigns will soon be dominated by artificial intelligence […]
The Narendra Modi government must offer more details about the proposed caste census and share updates about anti-terror operations — this will put to rest misleading and malicious rumours April 30, 2025, will remain etched in India’s memory as a special day. Since morning, there was palpable excitement about a really big announcement from the […]
Instead of deriding NOTA as a toothless or failed idea, all stakeholders must combine to make it stronger ‘None of the above’ (NOTA) as an option was introduced in the EVMs on the basis of the Supreme Court judgement in the PUCL vs Union of India case of September 27, 2013. The court then stated, […]
Disqualification at the stage of framing of charges, accompanied by other legal safeguards, could be an effective means to curb such criminalisation. EARLIER this week, while hearing a petition seeking a lifetime ban on convicted politicians, the Supreme Court observed that it found no logic in a convicted legislator being barred from contesting elections for […]
I believe it is the institutions, or more specifically, institutional capture that has contributed very significantly to this success. Political commentary comes in two broad forms. The commentator either supports a particular ideology or political thinking, or tends or pretends to be neutral and tries to explain events or situations seemingly “objectively”. Regardless of the […]
The RSS kind-of adopted the India Against Corruption movement from behind the scenes. The commanding win of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the Delhi assembly elections , and the almost total decimation of the Indian National Congress (INC) – couldn’t win a single seat in three consecutive elections – have […]
Like traditional campaign spending, there is an uneven level-playing field in the online spending space as well Since 2014, digital media platforms have become a ubiquitous part of Indian election campaigns. The use of social media for election campaigning intensified in the 2024 general elections with the rampant use of generative AI for campaign messaging. Today, […]