On A Loose End

Every time there is an election in India, there is a lot of speculation and anxiety amidst the media and the of course the politicians about the voter turnout. This time there was more concern and expectations in view of the Mumbai attacks last year. However the first phase of the 2009 Lok Sabha elections kicked off yesterday with the same old story. Ultimately a voter turnout between 58 - 62% was recorded. At the very outset of democracy in India, 45% voters turned up in 1952 which increased to 48% in 1957 and then 55% in 1962. Thereafter the voter turnout has hovered between 55-65%. Indian electorate i.e. the eligible voters above the age of 18, is 714 million. So a 60% turnout actually means that 285 million people do not vote and surprisingly no one is concerned. The 40% people who do not participate in the electoral process are not lazy or incapable of walking to the nearest polling booth, but are people who have lost faith in the system. They are either not happy with the candida...

There was a news item recently that Sanjay Dutt would be the candidate of the SP (Samajwadi Party) from Lucknow in the forthcoming elections. It is hardly surprising. The Political Parties in India are only interested in winning seats, they couldn't care less about the eligibility and the background of the person. Anything as long as the person can get in the votes. Considering that Sanjay Dutt is the right man for politics. Sanjay Dutt, by Indian standards of Politicians is highly eligible for contesting elections. He does not have any college degree to boast of. He does not have any background in Politics. He has been a drug addict in his younger years. He has been convicted and sentenced to 6 years RI under the Arms act( Rigorous Imprisonment ) in the 1993 Mumbai Blasts case. Everyone knows that his acquittal under TADA was largely influenced by his sister Priya Dutt, MP of the congress party and her association with Sonia Gandhi. What else does one need to become a politician i...

On Dec 24 2008, a PWD Engineer by the name of Manoj K Gupta was lynched by a BSP MLA One Mr Tiwari and two other goons for refusing to pay Rs 50 Lakhs towards the Birthday celebration of Mayawati. The story of the Gupta Murder goes like this, the MLA along with two other men went to Gupta's house in the night, locked up his wife and thrashed him continuously for a couple of hours. Then they left the unconscious man at the police station where the MLA told the police to register a case of hooliganism against Gupta and then he walked out, You read that right, the Police did not ask him the how's and why's, they let him go. Two hours later after the Police was sure that Gupta was dead, they took him to the hospital. The autopsy report says that Gupta was given electric shocks and chunks of hair pulled out of his head, there were 32 injury marks and one arm was fractured. Mayawati straightaway denied any involvement, she went on to say that the murder was a result of profession...

Under severe pressure from the Government the Public sector banks announced a rate cut for the home loans upto 20 Lakhs. From now on Home loans upto Rs 5 Lakhs will carry an interest rate of 8.0 % and those between Rs 5 - 20 Lakhs will carry an interest rate on only 9.25%. Hold on! Don't rush to the bank yet. Read the fine print. The rates will be valid only for new home loans and the existing borrowers will continue to bear the burden of the older interest rates. To top it all the new interest rates will not even be passed on to to the floating rate customers. The SBI chief announced that there won't be any PLR cut soon. PLR is the factor dictating the rate of interest for the new loans as well as the floating interest loans. Last option.... that too is taken care of by the financial wizards of this country. The new rates will not be effective if you swap your loan account with some other bank. Last nail in the coffin, The rates are effective only for first five years and will...

After the attack on Mumbai, like it always is, the public outcry was loud and pretty clear. People started shouting Enough is Enough. Campaigns, petitions and blogs were started on public's lack of trust in the office bearers across barriers and departments. The noise is steadily and surely dying down. The media house which put the words "Enough is Enough" in the mouths of the public is now vehemently exhorting people to go shopping to India's biggest shopping festival. One small ray of hope which came out of the Mayhem, and which in my opinion is the key to wresting back the power from the politicians and the political parties was the viral-e-mail about section 49(O) of the THE CONDUCT OF ELECTIONS RULES, 1961 ( http://lawmin.nic.in/ld/subord/cer1.htm ) The e-mail said that if the number of voters opting for not voting in accordance with rule 49(O) was bigger than votes secured by any of the candidates, it would result in a re-poll. Alas, this very bit of informatio...