NRI Voting rights

It pains me so much to note that the non-resident Indian citizens can not cast their votes in the upcoming parliament elections (in fact in any election). According to Section 19 of the Representation of People Act, 1950, only a person who is “ordinarily resident” in a constituency is entitled to be registered in the electoral roll of that constituency. This section seems to be out dated and does not congeal with the reality. A non-resident Indian should not be deprived of this important privilege that is enjoyed by the regular citizens. The matter of concern here is that the election commission should ensure that NRIs are given an option to cast their votes via the Indian consulates abroad or make sure that NRI votes are not misrepresented by bogus voting. I feel that aforesaid section is discriminatory and limits the NRIs from selecting their leaders. The law may be disloyal to us but it will not make us less patriotic than the ordinary residents.

EVM

Criticizing Electronic Voting Machines by comparing US & Japan against India has no analogy. United States is against networking of the electronic voting machines and not against the use of such machines altogether. The newly constituted Federal Election Assistance Commission (in the US) is debating with the individual states on introducing a paper backup for the elections. Fewer states such as Georgia, Ohio and California have already introduced touch screen voting machines. Nevertheless to mention that the conventional punch cards in 2000 presidential election created a major embarrassment to the voting process in the state of Florida.

The entire world recently witnessed the use of EVMS which demonstrated the Indian democracy in action. India has effectively established the use of EVMs as the pioneer in the world’s largest democratic election process. Change is the only constant and we should be ready to accept the consequences of such change. Usage of EVMs against the paper ballots goes to the fundamental issue that election reform in our country has been obsessed with since the last decade. The paper ballots are not tamper proof either. If the Indian elections need to be conducted with paper ballots even after investing thousands of millions of rupees on EVMs, why not we go back to Stone Age and live as nomads?

Chennai MRTS

The Tamil Nadu government had asked for a feasibility study for a new Metro railway system. It intrigues me that MRTS is not considered a metro transit. Instead of spending millions of rupees on a new system, the existing system should be transformed to a world class metro system. MRTS in chennai failed to have a vision right from the beginning. Having a status of the first elevated railway system in India did not elevate its stature. The one good thing that came out of MRTS is the clearance of slums and narrowing of the tribunals to the river coouam. First of all, it was this system that was thrown open even before the stations were fully constructed. The system is still not marketing itself to lure commuters. Right from the analysis stage to its finished product, nothing seems to be done in a professional manner, because it is the only system that took nearly 24 years to get to the development stage. This is a world record. The local railway officials had no say on its fare structures as New Delhi decided it. This attitude is part and parcel of the Indian Railways where the local divisions cannot decide what the systems can and can not offer. The survival of MRTS not only depends on its fare structure, but depends on what it can offer, which the other modes of transportation cannot. How can MRTS charge a similar fare when compared with DMRC Metro where the latter provides air-conditioned coach, automatic doors, etc? The only time I had seen MRTS at its fullest capacity is during the first week of its inauguration where the entire travel was free. Even now this system is arguably free from commuters and I am unsure that the second phase would yield the expected results if the current modality prevails. The only solution is, to decentralize MRTS by making it a separate entity and by merging it with the MTC, which is a common phenomenon in World wide Metro systems.

Hindu succession Act

It is the apt time to have an amendment to the Hindu succession act that gives equal rights to women in parental property. Even today there are millions of women in our country who are silently grieving, after writing off their due share on the ancestral property to their male siblings. Such women are driven by social implications and personal relationship with their siblings. They are threatened, black mailed and emotionally disturbed by their male siblings. It is quite unfortunate that even moderately educated women are victims of such discrimination. Only handful of women has the guts to bring their male siblings to a court of law in order to get their fair share. In a Hindu society filing a suit against a family member by a woman is still frowned upon. I salute those women for their brave action to seize their legitimate birthright. The amendment is an eye opener for such women and will provide a strong backbone to their independence.

Stealing Recognition

Indians need to be proud of the deeds committed by fellow Indians and not by foreigners. The blame is on the Indian news media. Why do the Indian news media appreciate the achievements of “foreigners “as if they were achieved by Indian citizens? The “foreigners”, I am referring to, are either born in India or born to Indian parents, but do not have an Indian citizenship. Be it the Nobel laureates, astronauts, wiz kids, the news media had always spread propaganda, by associating “Indian-ness” with their achievement. It had comfortably ignored the fact that the support rendered by their own country and the individual’s effort to achieve these great heights. I feel that the Indian news media should appreciate their achievements by not “stressing” too much, on the fact that they have some sort of link to India. This brings in the following questions in my mind. Why do we need to “self-motivate” ourselves with other’s achievements? Do “Indians” always perform better when they are out of India? Or, is it so that the achievements of Indians are not well appreciated because they had achieved it in India? First came, kalpana chawla then now Sunitha Williams.... A supercomputer is named KC, a satellite is named kalpana, but nothing is named after Rakesh Sharma ... oops sorry there are few Indians named Rakesh Sharma now.

Air India

Why is Air India ALWAYS Mumbai or Delhi centric? I am not questioning the decision made by Air India, but trying to understand the need for a flight to the US from these airports, where handful of flights are already available. I keep guessing if Air India knows that scores of Indian citizens in the West come from South India, nevertheless to say for IT jobs. And unfortunately there are no direct flights from any of the southern airports. If Air India presumes that its flights will be empty, I am wondering how Lufthansa, British Airways, Malaysia Airlines and Singapore airlines always fly with full capacity to the airports like Chennai ,Bangalore & Hyderabad! It is not a question of North or South divide but it is high time for Air India to be available for the entire nation and not just for few cities which it thinks deemed fit.

Education Vs HealthCare

It is ironical that the politicians are making a hue cry about commercialization of education. A major portion of health care industry is in private hands for decades and no body seems to be bothered about this essential service. Education and health goes hand-in-hand. Can someone be denied appropriate medical care or be given extra additional care because of their social status? If the education industry can have reservation, why not impose reservation in health care too?

Indian Constitution

Indian constitution's preamble that preaches democracy, sovereignty and secularist society is getting diluted day by day.

a) By introducing a ban on cow slaughter, the politicians are trying to directly affect the beef eaters’ right to live and their LIBERTY of thought & expression. How can a government control what people can and can not eat? Slaughtering of animals in general should be welcome but not a particular animal. In my purview, drinking cow's milk and using dairy products is crueler than eating beef. How good can it make to use cow’s secretion than eating its meat? At least the animal is dead when people eat it. Is this a political gimmick to attract Hindu votes, or the pressure from a specific Hindu group, or to respect a specific religion? In any of the cases, it pacifies a specific set of people in the name of a religion, which violates our constitution. Can these politicians give a single reason for banning “cow slaughtering alone” that does not have an explicit impact to a religion?

b) Our forefathers invented reservation to uplift a specific set of people. But now it is the biggest tool to exploit people by the political parties. In my opinion the generic intent of "Right to equality” negates the provision of "Reservation". If an Indian citizen has a specific set of rights as prescribed by the constitution, the same constitution can not give additional rights to another set of people because of their social/economic status. The watchword “Everyone is equal in the eyes of law”, is explicitly overridden by providing reservation. Most of the political parties have their business enclosed with an eye on reservation. Otherwise we would not have seen an extension to the reservation system every 10 years after the initial provision expired. As per our constitution, at one point the reservation has to come to a full stop. Will any political party talk about that? Moreover, the US constitution, which is far older and much considerate than ours, does not provide a special right in form of "Reservation". Even after the civil war, US did not introduce a special right to a specific set of people and recently the US Supreme Court struck down a guideline by a university that gave additional points in its grading system for African American citizens.

c) “Right to freedom of religion & worship” is again misused by the society. Most schools/colleges in our country still conducts a "prayer" session which violates the right to worship for a specific set of students, who does not belong to the religion to which the prayer session is conducted. These institutions not only can force the students to attend a prayer session, but they don't even have the basic right to "initiate" a prayer session in an education environment. Certain schools in our country even enforce a religious dress code to its students. And some schools have in-built temples, churches and mosques within the school campus. Contrary to this, in TamilNadu there are certain educational institutions that are affiliated to self-respect groups (who does not believe in god and religion) forces students not to perform/enjoy any religious activity by not providing holidays on gazette holidays. Religious activities should be left alone to the religious institutions and educational institutions should not preach religion. Again, I have to take a note from the US constitution; none of the educational institutions in the US have the basic right to “initiate” a minimal religious activity, even if they are affiliated to a religious institution.

US Army

The august 7^th edition of Time magazine (page 18) mentions that the idea of recruiting English speaking Indian citizens for the US Army has a “great promise”. The US Army’s director of military personnel policy said that they need to pursue this idea. I wonder if it is possible for an Indian citizen to enlist in a foreign army?

Triskaidekaphobia

It is outrageous that Kerala High court is phobic to number 13 and even more offensive to impose a fine of Rs.10,000/- on the petitioner for its belief over Triskaidekaphobia. The bench of the Kerala high court that dismissed the original petition should immediately set an example by examining its motives, conviction and attitude. It is sad to note that the Apex Court chose to just give a message than coming down heavily on the high court’s decision.

Indian Judiciary

Indian Judiciary wants zero influence from the executive. But it is answerable to its citizens. Not long ago, honorable(!!??) judges from the Punjab High court went on a mass leave departing from their constitutional duty. The Supreme Court dismissed litigation on this issue as a publicity stunt. Nevertheless to mention, employees of the Tamil Nadu State government did the exact same thing with the Supreme Court placing stringent measures on such mass leave afterwards. The analogy is intriguing, while it is off beam for the government employees to stage a walkout, was it reasonable for the judges to do so? Are judges superior to a common man?

Arundhati Roy, a swindler.

Arundhati Roy criticism towards Mr. Bush comes from a person who committed criminal contempt by scandalizing the supreme court of India. She refused to plead guilty or apologize. Later, she was released from jail after serving a one-day sentence for such a contempt, and paid a fine rather than serve another three months in prison. She did what was considered a best option then, so did Mr.Bush by avoiding the so called Plan One and Plan two.

She continues her tirade against globalization and then declines to accept the honor from the Sahitya Academy but likes to receive other prizes and awards from rest of the world. Her statements and actions are always contradicting.