Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) were first conceived by the Election Commission of India (ECI) as a replacement for the ballot paper and the ballot box in 1977. The design and development of the machine was entrusted to a public sector undertaking, the Electronics Corporation of India Ltd (ECIL) in Hyderabad which developed a prototype by […]
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सांसद निधि से नुकसान ज्यादा
प्रत्येक संसद सदस्य को अपने क्षेत्र के विकास के लिए सांसद निधि के तहत हर साल पांच करोड़ रुपये दिये जाते हैं. सदस्य के सुझाव के आधार पर इस राशि से क्षेत्र में विकास कार्य कराये जाते हैं. हालांकि, इस प्रक्रिया पर सवाल हैं. स्थानीय क्षेत्र विकास के लिए सांसदों को दिया जानेवाला यह फंड […]
The status of NOTA
The phrase ‘criminalisation of politics’ entered the Indian lexicon in 1993 when it was used by the Vohra Committee which had been set up “to take stock of all available information about the activities of crime syndicates/mafia organisations which had developed links with and were being protected by government functionaries and political personalities”. This high-powered […]
चुनावी प्रक्रिया में ठोस सुधार किए बिना महिलाओं के विरुद्ध जघन्य अपराध खत्म करना संभव नहीं
हैदराबाद में एक पशु चिकित्सक युवती के साथ सामूहिक दुष्कर्म और उसकी हत्या कर उसके शव को जलाने की जो नृशंस घटना घटी उससे पूरे देश में गम और गुस्सा दिखाई दिया। देश भर के लोगों का रोष स्वाभाविक भी था, लेकिन जो आक्रोश संसद में और संसद के बाहर विभिन्न दलों के नेताओं ने […]
My name is Bond, Electoral Bond
The heading of my column is, obviously, an adaptation of a famous sentence written by Ian Fleming, creator of the iconic spy, James Bond. The same series had one more film titled Licence to Kill. It is a strange coincidence that while James Bond supposedly had the licence to kill the bad guys, it may […]
Regulation of political propaganda/campaigning on social media
General Elections 2014 marked social media platforms as a major tool to impact the dynamics of politics. It is no news that social media played a key role to spread fake news, hate speech, and paid news to mislead voters. Hence, prior to the Lok Sabha 2019, Election Commission of India (ECI), along with the […]
The Hypocrisy of Politicians’ Outrage Over Rape
Three of the members of the Lok Sabha, where shouts to lynch rapists rang loud, have rape charges pending against them. The rape and burning of the victim in Hyderabad are indeed a matter of shame for the whole country. However, the outrage expressed in the parliament about a week ago seemed surprising. The honourable MPs […]
Have electoral bonds made a bad system worse?
In disallowing voters from knowing the identity of donors, the scheme is even more opaque now Last month, an investigative series on electoral bonds by independent journalist Nitin Sethi, with the help of Right to Information (RTI) activist Commodore Lokesh Batra (retd), exposed how the BJP leadership misled the Election Commission (EC) and Parliament on […]
Govt policy on funding political parties bad news for democracy
The government decided to issue electoral bonds as a money bill. This was unconstitutional because electoral bonds are not covered by the definition of ‘money bill’ in the Constitution. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the sole authority to issue currency under Section 31 of the RBI Act, was approached four days before the announcement […]
Democracy cannot be used to derive private benefit at public cost
The ensuing December 5 bypolls to 15 Assembly constituencies in Karnataka are the result of defections from the then ruling coalition. The government fell, the Supreme Court was approached, and now we have 165 candidates contesting these elections. The court upheld their disqualification (of the rebels), but said they were eligible to contest again. Engineering […]