It has become an article of faith with Prime Minister Narendra Modi that elections must be held concurrently to the Lok Sabha and the State assemblies – ostensibly to achieve the twin-objectives of minimising the expenses involved and eliminating the disruption caused to governance and development goals by frequent elections. The idea of a single […]
An investigation by The Quint has revealed that the much-hailed electoral bonds, which were to have ushered in an era of taint-free financing for political parties, carry a secret number “visible on the right top corner of the original document showing fluorescence when examined under Ultra Violet (UV) Light.” The saga of electoral bonds started with the Budget […]
When conscientious and well-meaning citizens are attacked for “acting rightly”, is the government “acting rightly” by not doing enough to safeguard them? Yet another Right to Information (RTI) activist in Gujarat has paid with his life for demanding transparency. On March 9, Nanjibhai Sondarva (35), a resident of Manekvada village in Kotda Sangani taluka of Rajkot district, was […]
Politicians or political parties cannot purchase votes if the voter is not for sale, noted Chairman of the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) Prof Trilochan Sastry while stressing on level of awareness amongst voters about the consequences of electoral malpractices which promote corruption and bad governance. The Odisha Election Watch that organised a convention here […]
The spate of withdrawal of pending criminal cases against politicians in UP, Rajasthan, MP and Kerala in recent months points at the overpowering stranglehold of the political establishment on all the organs of governance. “No legislature in India, including its parliament and all the state assemblies, has any member with a criminal case pending against […]
The proposed amendment to the already repealed FCRA 1976, tucked away in the last page of the Finance Bill, is akin to trying to conduct a heart or liver transplant on a person who has been dead for seven years. “Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action,” Ian Fleming is reported […]
With the introduction of electoral bonds, Electoral Trusts are no longer required to reveal the name(s) of the party to which donations are given. If a government makes policy, budget allocations or tax rules that favour donors over the public, we will not even know who the donors were. Behind all the debates on election […]
Political parties are often able to exercise supreme power with impunity, even while blatantly defying statutory authorities. A dictionary defines ‘sovereignty’ as “the quality or the state of being sovereign, or of having supreme power or authority; supreme or independent power or authority in government as possessed or claimed by a state or community”. So […]
The new scheme to buy electoral bonds seeks to ‘cleanse the system of political funding’, but without revealing the names of donors. The day that everyone interested in political and electoral funding had been waiting for since February 2, 2017, finally arrived on January 2. It took the finance minister and all the bureaucrats under […]
ADR’s strong reaction has come a day ahead of the important hearing in Supreme Court on a PIL seeking lifetime ban on convicted persons to contest elections. Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), the NGO spearheading campaign to stop tainted leaders from entering Parliament and State Assemblies has welcomed Government’s move to set up 12 fast […]