Media and Politics: blurring lines ?

http://www.ndtv.com/news/videos/video_player.php?id=1130460

Quota vs Equality of Opportunity

Only 10% women in the Parliament. All democracies, including advanced nations have required strong measures to get women decisively into politics.

http://ibnlive.in.com/videos/94477/06_2009/ftn0806_2a/ftn-india-still-not-ready-for-womens-quota-bill.html

Why not make it compulsory for the political parties to give women 33% tickets, instead of rotations in constituencies (equality of opportunity) ?
-- Political parties may then field women candidates against strong opponents, where they are bound to loose.

Know your politician - politician writers

Reading their books may be a way to reach out to understand our politicians better.
http://ibnlive.in.com/videos/94383/polls-over-writerpoliticians-pick-up-the-pen-again.html

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/6564/moilys-latest-book-indias-agrarian.html

'Vote Bazaar' by ?

Plan: 2009 - 14

President's speech to the Parliament / June 4, 2009
http://presidentofindia.nic.in/sp040609_hindi.html

Punjab - History, Issues - The Vienna Incident

http://www.ndtv.com/news/videos/video_player.php?id=1110906

Election 2009 Analysis

According to ADR's latest analysis of Lok Sabha 2009 elections:
- Number of MPs with criminal charges has increased by 29%
- BJP has the maximum number of elected MPs with criminal charges (43 = 37%). Congress is second (41 = 20 %)
- The number of MPs with 'very serious' charges has declined.
- If voters have a choice, they prefer a clean candidate

- Average assets of Congress MPs is Rs 6.8 Cr, and BJPs MPs is Rs 3.6 Cr (substantial increase in both since 2004)

- Among the MPs, there are 390 graduates including 130 Post-Grads, and 23 PhDs

Full report here: http://tinyurl.com/qglbgu
Shantanu's related blog post: http://satyameva-jayate.org/2009/05/20/kaun-banega-crorepati/ (thanks Shantanu !)

Suresh Prabhu (Shiv Sena), Left party in general are clean and ethical

http://www.sureshprabhu.in/

Ref:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6ZHak1lEr8

Elections 2009 - Final polling % - Around 58%

Same as 2004, which is good as it means that downward trend has been stalled !
Also, some interesting trends at micro level. For eg, voting in Chennai apparently increased by 12% !!

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/62-turnout-in-phase-5-overall-57-same-as-04/articleshow/4523144.cms

I am wondering what was the change in 'urban-rural' voting %s ? And what is the age wise polling % ? Let me know if you know.

Chandigarh: urban vote catches up with rural
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2009/20090515/cth1.htm

No Criminals - Results ... MPs, Cabinet

Thumbs down to criminals in many constituencies.
But 43 from BJP, and 41 from Congress still get in !!! What % of total fielded made it ?
How many of criminal MPs will get into the Cabinet ? Lets wait and watch.

http://www.ndtv.com/news/elections/no_criminals_in_cabinet_please.php

JP of Loksatta wins, inspite of corrupt politics

Dr J P Narayan won a seat in the constituent assembly.
Loksatta spent less than Rs 1 lakhs per contestant.

http://www.loksatta.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=244&Itemid=60

cheers !

CSDS - Centre for Study of Developing Studies

http://www.csds.in/

... of Prof Yogendra Yadav, CNN-IBN fame

Comparison of Party Manifestoes

http://in.elections.yahoo.com/comparemanifesto.html

Six Myths About Indian Elections

Do women in India vote according to the wishes of their husbands? Do Muslims vote as a community? Political scientist Yogendra Yadav examines six myths surrounding the Indian elections.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7973477.stm

Hindutva, Secularism and the importance of 'framing' in general

In some interpretations of Hindutva - as I discovered - it means the same as secularism.

The problem is that most people - both Hindutva supporters, and opposers - this meaning is not clear. If for example, RSS organises a rally to promote secular principle or religious harmony etc, not many people may join.

Organisations, and political parties are too clever not to recognise this confusion. They seem to be exploiting it infact. If they are really serious about the all embracing and secular values of Hinduism, the need to proactively and explicitly frame things right. The use of 'Hindutva' for secularism is not going to work unfortunately, as it is too close to a particular religion, and very widely misunderstood now. For example, imagining the word for secularism in 'urdu' India wide ... I am sure it will not be as welcome and 'neutral' as the english word 'secularism'.

Framing is important. Both to create confusion. And to dispell it.

Know your constituency, state

1. Click on http://www.raftaar.in/election-2009-lok-sabha/ElectionUser.aspx
2. Select your state, constituency
3. Select language
4. Generate code and Add this code on your *website/blogs.*

eg. For Jabalpur and MP, see tables below :

It seems 13 candidates are contesting this time from Jabalpur. Tradionally, the key battle is between BJP (Candidate this time : Mr Rakesh Singh) and Congress (Candidate this time : Mr Rameshwar Neekhra). Ref : http://ibnlive.in.com/politics/partylist.php?phase=2&cons=MADHYA_PRADESH

Also see: http://myneta.info/jabalpur

MP:
Uma Bharti - http://www.ndtv.com/news/videos/video_player.php?id=1126725

Politics - Nuts and Bolts

Find some questions and answers on Shantanu's blog :
http://satyameva-jayate.org/2008/09/01/politics-nuts-and-blots/

BiPartisan Electoral Reform Organisations

• Jago Re
  
• No Criminals Campaign
  

• Association for Democratic Reform: http://www.adrindia.org/home/index.asp
  
• http://www.mumbaivotes.com/
• http://www.newglobalindian.com/
  

Election Funding

The official spending limit for a lok sabha candidate is Rs 25 lakhs, and for constituency candidate is Rs 15 lakhs. However, in practice, much more may be spent : Rs 10-15 Crores for Loksabha candidate and Rs 2-6 Crores for an Assembly candidate (according to Hindu Article : see below). This amount may be doubling every 5 years.

The biggest head (65-75%) in the expenditure seems to be 'buying voters', including liquor expenses. Other "major heads of poll spending are: engaging at least 2,000 active men for campaigning, poll management and counting; hiring or purchasing, and maintaining, vehicles; organising publicity material; opening village-level offices; preparing and distributing voter slips; fetching electors to polling stations; getting star speakers and picking up the tab for their travel, lodging and boarding; and other miscellaneous expenditure"

Hindu : Unofficial cost of fighting elections
http://www.hindu.com/2009/04/06/stories/2009040660001400.htm

http://ibnlive.in.com/videos/88992/30-mins-find-out-who-is-funding-which-party-this-polls.html


Donations to political parties are exempt of Income Tax. There are several dummy political parties which do not engage politically but use the party status for tax savings. Election Commission cannot derecognise political parties, though they requested that this power be given to them. As a result, there may be 100s of disfunctional registered political parties in India today.

Many politicians are very rich, with assets work many crores !
http://ibnlive.in.com/videos/89813/declared-wealth-of-candidates-has-gone-up-by-400-pc.html

About the first General Election, 1952

http://ibnlive.in.com/videos/89014/1st-general-election-a-risk-that-paid-off-guha.html

Get your facts right if you aspire to be a politician

What do you need to have if you wish to contest elections through an existing political party ?

The video shows congress' recruitment drive in Gujarat.
http://ibnlive.in.com/videos/88358/get-your-facts-right-if-you-aspire-to-be-a-politician.html

It will be interesting to figure out what these recruits will actually do once they join. How are they different from regular party 'workers' ? What aspirations and motivations do those who are applying have ?

Students at Anna Uni, inspired by ex-President Kalam :
http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/video/video.aspx?id=63402

I do not agree though that politicians are not accessible, as these students claim. This is a wrong perception I feel. Have you tried calling up or speaking to your local MPs/MLAs/politicians ? I did, and it was actually fairly easy to meet them. And most politicians are extremely good with people, so they leave you with a warm feeling. I also found their office to be like an 'open darbaar' (same as offices of some civil servants whom I visited). There were 100s of people who came to meet everyday.
One thing which may be different compared to business meetings though is that there may be no strict appointments. You may get a general time-slot and may have to wait for a couple of hours (in the open darbaar) to get your real meeting going. But it is easy to pass time as you can see other meetings happening right in front of you and in fact may also pitch in if you like. And so, be prepared for an open transparent meeting with other visitors sitting close by in the same room when your own real meeting begins !

Youth in Hyderabad :
http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/video/video.aspx?id=65272
Elite Politics, South Mumbai :
http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/video/video.aspx?id=65280

--

If I were PM / BBC : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7970921.stm