VoteIndia.in professes that democracy is the best of the available form of governances. But what if there is something currently not available, but something that may work and take care of drawbacks of all the current existing systems? For quite sometime I have been on the quest to churn out a new system that will erase all of the drawbacks of the existing systems, and at the same time provide you with a concrete solution to lead a perfect human life. Little did I know that people across the globe are still debugging on the same issue.

The Lotus Project of the Zeitgeist movement, is not exactly working on a form of governance, but they are working on a new form of economy which in effect is churning out a new form of governance. The Lotus Project aims to convert the existing money based economy to a resource based economy.

In a life proposed by Zeitgeist you do not work to earn money, but you work for your passion. Money is a forgotten past. You do what you like to do. Although their argument of religion and that the entire world politics is a conspiracy seem to be baseless and only a propaganda tool. Their system also has quite a few loopholes.

But the package is certainly worth making a peep. If you like it, jump in and solve their entangled threads, else admire the creativity and say goodbye.

Detail account on  : http://inimish.blogspot.com/2010/01/zeitgeist-spirit-of-times.html#links

Gujarat Assembly on Saturday passed a landmark bill which makes, for the first time in the country, voting mandatory in local body polls.

The Gujarat Local Authorities Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2009, which also seeks to raise the reservation of seats for women in local self governance bodies from 33 to 50 per cent, was passed by voice vote.

The opposition, led by Congress, opposed the mandatory voting provision, terming it in contradiction with the constitutional provisions but supported raising of seats for women in the local bodies from 33 per cent to 50 per cent.

The opposition had demanded separate bills for 50 per cent reservation for women and for mandatory voting in local self governance bodies.

Under the bill, if a voter fails to vote for the reasons other than prescribed in the rules, he may be declared a “defaulter voter” and would face consequences for which rules will be framed and placed before the Assembly for its approval later.

“It is observed that due to low turnout of voters to discharge their duty by exercising their right to vote, the true spirit of the will of the people is not reflected in the electoral mandate,” said the statement of objects and reasons of the bill.

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi later told reporters that this is an attempt to strengthen India’s democracy. “Everybody will benefit by compulsory voting be it a ruling party or the opposition,” he said.

While introducing the bill, Nitin Patel described the bill as a historical step taken by the government to strengthen the democratic process by achieving 100 per cent voting in the local bodies’ elections.
According to him, the proposed provision once approved, will put Gujarat in the league of a number of developed nations where voting in the local bodies’ polls is mandatory.

However, Leader of Opposition Shaktisinh Gohil described it as a “populist measure” by the Sstate government which is absolutely in contradiction with the constitutional provisions.

He added the amendment bill should be split into two and a separate bill for reservation for women should be introduced first.

“My party will support the government and would vote in favour of the bill for enhancing reservation for women from 33 per cent to 50 per cent as done by the Central Government,” Gohil said, adding, “however, Congress party cannot support the provision of mandatory voting.”

http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-Feed/gujarat/Gujarat-assembly-passes-mandatory-voting-bill/Article1-488451.aspx

321 candidates (32%) with self declared pending criminal charges contesting in Jharkhand assembly election 2009

Out of these 321 candidates, 155 candidates (16%) have declared serious IPC charges i.e. rape, murder and attempt to murder charges against them

All major parties give ticket to candidate with serious pending criminal charges like rape, buying minor for prostitution, kidnapping, murder, attempt to murder, dacoity etc. JMM-22, INC-12, BJP-6, AJSU-14, RJD-13, AITC-9

3454% Average increase in the assets of the 37 MLAs find to be recontesting in Jharkhand Assembly election 2009.

71 candidates declare their asset more than one crore

Ranchi, December 11, 2009: Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and National Election Watch (NEW), a nationwide campaign comprising of more than 1200 NGOs and other citizen led organizations, has been working on electoral reforms, improving democracy and governance in India.

NEW has analysed 997 affidavits out of total 1491 affidavits of candidates contesting for 81 seats of Jharkhand assembly election 2009. This report is based on the analysis of these affidavits.

The following pages give the candidate wise, party wise analysis of criminal, financial and other background of the contesting candidates.

More details on – http://www.adrindia.org/Media-Center/ADR-Press-Releases/321-candidates-32-with-self-declared-pending-criminal-charges-contesting-in-jharkhand-assembly-election-2009.html

Please log on to www.adrindia.org for more details.

I woke up on 13th with a child like enthusiasm & knowledge that I was going to vote for the first time. I had checked & rechecked on mumbaicityelections.org whether I was registered or not. I had also applied for a change in address on the website. unfortunately, I didn’t have the time to collect my EPIC from Airoli.

My first stop was the place where my parents were registered, It was a frustrating 15mins when I saw that my family was registered but I was Not. Secondly, the person sitting to check tells me, “Madam, if your name is not in the LIST, you CANNOT vote”. I asked him a simple question,” what if i have a EPIC & my name is not in the list?”. He replied,” You CANNOT VOTE.”

“Welcome to the system” was my first though. I called up 1290 & found out the correct address of my polling booth.  The lady who answered was loud & obnoxious. She gave me the address as “Sector 25″  & on searching I found, no sec-25 exists. after 45 mins of going from booth to booth, i came to a school – SURPRISE SURPRISE,, SCHOOL NO 25!!!!!

Finally, i went in, identity verified & stuff, The GRAND FINALE:

I asked for 490- Form 17a. The lady in front of me asks,”Whose that? Whom do you want to meet?”

I went to the presiding officer, who looked like a pan stall owner & as expected, he gave me a blank look. I patiently explained about 49-O and he tells me, “WOH BILL PASS NAI HUA PARLIAMENT MAIN”.

I gave up. believe me, I gave up, voted for the the candidate I thought was the best & just pushed off from there.

If people inspecting at the polling booth are so ignorant about 49-O, what do we expect from the common man? We need to spread this information about 49-O like wildfire.The voting this time has been 50% in Mumbai, it will be more the next time.

Honestly, This experience has just made me stronger, because I am going to vote next time & I will vote for 49-O.

-Aakansha

Shiv Sena Party headed by Uddhav Thackery has announced its candidate list for the upcoming state elections http://www.shivsena.org/Candidates%202009.pdf. It is really interesting to see the political parties using the power of the Internet. Their website http://www.shivsena.org/ contains links of cartoons created by BalaSaheb Thackery and you can also have a say in their manifesto. I am sure other political parties are also trying to woo the net savvy voters. This is what I call for the people by the people.

-Krish

India has spoken, and how! It has chosen development over the noisy, short-sighted and sometimes downright pathetic rants of some selfish fools. These politicians will never realize what the people want.

This time around, young first time voters were quite large in number. The youth have a completely different mindset and perspective than what most political parties are used to. We have grown up watching our leaders throw chairs and chappals at each other and listened to those election promises over and over to the point of being clichéd. We are tired of divisive, religion, caste based and hate politics. Personally, all I would want is to study and do my job well, go home and spend some quality time with family and friends, go on a fun holiday, do something constructive…not waste my life fighting, swearing at or degrading other people over some petty issues.

UPA won by a thumping margin and although the full credit should go to the humble Dr. Manmohan Singh and the young Rahul Gandhi, the Congress should also thank it’s opponents. The first remark, ’125 saal ki budhiya’ showed the people that the Congress still had the most experience in the field. The second about ‘dynasty politics’, a reference to Milind Deora, Priya Dutt, Sachin Pilot, Jyotiraditya Scindia among others, put the spotlight on the new, educated breed of politicians that the Congress had.

Heartiest congratulations to the UPA for pulling off this win. And although they have achieved a majority, I hope the Congress rules responsibly and takes clear headed decisions. Alongwith economic reforms, they should look to uplift the population starting with the most economically challenged and downtrodden sections of our society and seek a positive change in their lifestyle. Here’s hoping for a true ‘India Shining’ 

As we know that there are about 14 crore TV sets accross India. If we assume that a family consists of 5 members then, 60 crore people get access to TV, but other 52crore do not. Also in urban India (about 40 crore) fix toward wrong & illogical channels that made TV an idiot box.

Lok Sabha Channel is a neutral channel. It neither supports UPA,NDA,independents, nor it tries to politically motivate. It shows all the events (like Question hour, Zero hour, & all others). We all should watch this sessions, since MPs are in power because of us. We vote them and give them power, so we should know what they are doing in Parliament. This should be done in rural areas too.

Some might say that MPs made a ‘Sabji ki Mandi‘ in the Parliament. I feel that all MPs are not the hippocrites(like Omar Abdullah, Sachin Pilot. etc who want to serve). So, rural people too are responsible to give them power. Why should not they know about the sessions in the Parliament?

-Shubhrojyoti

Dear brothers and sisters,

It is really unfortunate to see the photo of children carrying electronic voting
machines on the eve of third phase of the Lok Sabha elections in the Bhagalpur
constituency in Bihar on Wednesday( Photo by Ranjeet Kumar) on page no 13 of
today’s The Hindu news paper.

It is painful to notice that police personal escort them.( I assume that the
people in khaki are police Personal).

Are we, the responsible citizens of India, not to be blamed for such child labour
employed by government departments. Do we really have an idea of abolishing
Child labour? Will our politicians ( whom we are going to elect and who promises
to give education for all and eradication of Child labour ) look in into this
issue.

I do not know how many thousands of children are employed in such duties all
over India.

Hope there will be a dawn in the life of those unfortunate children.

I wish those who employed the children for carrying EVM must be punished.

Will this humble and sincere request reach the officials, departments and ministries
concerned?

Let us hope for a Child Labour free India soon.

Jai Hind.

Valoothoor Vama A.Mohamed Ali
A responsible and patriotic Citizen,
Chennai

I got a scrap on orkut.com from Meenakshi Natarajan www.meenakshimandsaur.com , Congress LokSabha candidate from Mandsaur Constituency. I was happily surprised with her use of orkut and internet to reach out to voters in a constituency which is agriculture driven, rural district. In spite of low internet penetration, she chose to reach out to prospective voters. Either she wants to not leave any stone unturned in her campaign or there is immense potential of internet marketing even in semi urban and rural India. It’s unique experiment as your candidates and representatives are getting closer to voters not just in cities such Delhi and Mumbai but also in low profile, grossly ignored areas of the country.

I visited the site to know more about her and her agenda. Here are some pros and cons of her candidature.

Pros
· She is just 36 years old. Her youth with be beneficial as she is contesting against BJP candidate Laxmi narayan pandey, who is septuagenarian (76 yrs old).
· Her offensive is based on poor performance of her opponent who has not done justice to his job in spite being in the office for 8 times.
· Excellent academic record.
· Excellent political career.
· She has consciously moved to Mandsaur while her opponent is on weak grounds as his permanent residence is still not in Mandsaur even after representing the area for 8 times.
· There is clear anger among urban voters over lackadaisical attitude of Mr. Pandey over negligence and non pragmatism. Issues of Railway connectivity, Roads, Water crisis, Electricity, Industrialization have been neglected by current MP that will sway voters in favor of Ms Natarajan.
Cons
· She hails from Ratlam, a neighboring district. Since her opponent is also an outsider, her outsider status is not of greater significance.
· She is new for Mandsaur and it would be extremely difficult to recall a new comer’s name at the time of voting. Her South Indian heritage might be a disadvantage as Malwis (people of the region) might not associate a “Natrajan” to be one among them.
· She is just riding on incumbency factor and has not come out with any concrete action plan for solving problems of water crisis and industrialization. Sadly this has been the case for all Indian politicians who never have any action plan to solve issues. They just have political promises.

Overall, I feel Congress has done a good job in fielding Ms Natarjan. Her youth, energy and qualification will prove advantageous in removing BJP bottleneck from progress of Mandsaur, Neemuch, and Jaora.

-Anshuman

Todays politicans are divided in three groups:

1. Son- politician

2. Gunda- Politician

3. Other than two above.

Definition of election also changed with the group of politician.

1. Election is a process which fulfills the aspirations of son-politicians who can do nothing other than continuing with fathers business.

2. Election is a process by which gundas hold the arms of those who once handcapped them. It is an immunity from public out raze.

3. Election is a process by which we choose the beauty of uganda & Tanjania.

While voting, one must remember which objective he or she is going to serve.