The proposal for remote voting for migrant resident voters (MRIs) is not new has its origins in an older proposal, to allow Non-Resident Indians to vote. There are serious issues with this. The Election Commission of India (ECI) has announced a new initiative to introduce a ‘remote voting machine (RVM) system’ for migrant voters via its letter […]
With several state elections due soon and the Lok Sabha election due in 2024, many citizen groups are perturbed about the massive money power and the criminal muscle power destroying the very integrity of India’s elections and are trying to build a citizens’ movement to overcome them. A gathering under the banner of the “Karnataka […]
This article is an interview of Prof Chhokar, Founder Member and Trustee of ADR, with Civil Society Online. Promises fly thick and fast during election time. Political parties seek to outdo one another in getting the attention of voters. In the heat of the moment, mostly anything goes and voters are none the wiser […]
If a candidate makes an outlandish election promise, it is for the voter to decide whether to buy it or not. While the central poll panel labours over what is essentially a policy matter, an election practice that is actually problematic is not getting its attention In 1999, the Association for Democratic Reforms filed a […]
The problem of defection is not of the legislators alone. Political parties are essential actors in this drama of defection that now plays out repeatedly and brazenly in the political theatre of this country. Haryana has long been decried, and rightly so, for having given the notorious ‘Aaya Ram-Gaya Ram’ phenomenon to Indian politics. However, the Haryana […]
Promises of welfare spending should not be equated to a reckless freebie culture or a race to the bottom. It must be understood that welfare spending is essential to partly redress the widening inequality in Indian society India has been managing the world’s largest and longest running free food programme since April 2020. This is […]
The Supreme Court’s judgments in the cases of Zakia Jafri and Nupur Sharma are a study in contrast; one in which observations in court supplanted the main arguments of the petitioner, and the other, where the court proceedings were virtually left out. The Supreme Court of India has been in the news of late, primarily […]
मतदाता चुनाव के मुख्य अंग हैं। हमारी चुनाव प्रणाली में मतदाताओं से पूछकर उम्मीदवार उतारने की कोई प्रक्रिया ही नहीं है। राजनीतिक पार्टियां किसी को भी कहीं से खड़ा कर देती हैं। इसीलिए पार्टी बदलते समय नेताओं को जनता के प्रति कोई जवाबदेही नहीं अनुभव होती है। चुनाव का एलान होते ही नेताओं का दलबदल […]
In his now famous speech to budding police officers in Hyderabad on how civil society groups can be subverted, the National Security Adviser, Ajit Kumar Doval, widely regarded as the third most important official in the security establishment, significantly said: “The quintessence of democracy does not lie in the ballot box … it lies in the […]
