My mother told me she was at Queen Mary’s college in then Madras as a student on August 15, 1947. Her face was lighted up. I could only get a glimpse of the joy she felt. Three days of holidays, no tickets on buses. People pouring out on the streets, celebrating. Not only in Madras but […]
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 […]
Social Media and Changing Nature of Election Expenditure
Today’s innovation becomes the norm for tomorrow. This can be rightly said about the social media’s role in election campaigning in India. During the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, political parties were exploring this medium for their campaign to influence ‘online’ voters through the virtual mass media. However, by the time for Lok Sabha 2019 election […]
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 […]