Mandatory 30 minutes for your country every 5 years.

Gujarat makes voting a must in local polls

Believe it or not it has finally come.I have been wishing for it for such a law for years now. Surprisingly, It took a man like Narendra Modi to finally draft it. According to the new bill every registered person of the state will have to exercise voting or else will have to explain his absence.

Modi's argument:- cant we spare half an hour for the country every 5 years when people have given up a life time for the same cause.

Sounds strict but the thought process behind is immense. Take a scenario where there is 60% voting for a seat for which there are 10 candidates. Considering that these candidates have more or less the same patronage then the one getting 12-13% votes will win the election. This means a person ruling the seat will have disapproval of more than 80% of the people. This bill makes the voting mandatory and will ensure maximum turnout. Another feat of this bill is that voters are given power of the negative vote. Meaning which that if the voters don't think that any of the candidates is fit for the seat he can cast a negative vote. If negative vote is the majority then all candidates will be removed and replaced.Sounds good isn't it? So many of us just don't go to polling station just because we think (or we know) that all of them are thieves and just going to steal my tax-paid money. But now I have the option of rejecting all of then in one single shot. If people think that way in majority then all of the candidates will be replaced. Watch the embedded video below. Modi explains simple measures like proof of voting for buying a new car or a sim card. These kind of things will really push the middle class to vote. It is the class that has largely been missing in the elections only because they don't see any point in going for elections. Lets hope other states too follow the suit and finally the whole nation does that.

P.S.:-My favorite part in this bill was the concept of negative voting.

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Gujarat makes voting a must in local polls

Times of India again..this time its web avatar

Earlier it was only Times of India- Now it has teamed up with its ugly brother http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/.

When Times of India was gaining notoriety for printing the most obscene of the printable in the news paper industry, how can its internet avatar be left behind? It’s been years since I posted my article on “Times of India” and I merely stopped reading it. 2 years later,bored at my office in Houston, I accidentally opened times of India.Just the articles on the main page was enough to make me squirm in my seat. As soon as I opened it I guiltily looked around to make sure that nobody saw me opening this. I couldn’t have possibly passed it as a news site to any of my American co-workers passing by. Wondered why the company’s web sense didn’t block the site in the first place.

First of all I felt embarrassed (though without any apparent fault of mine) that a sorry-dirty excuse of a newspaper/news site has the word “India” in it. Is it not disheveling and quite shocking that the newspaper that claims to be the largest selling English news paper in India and the most visited news website in the world is nothing but a mere attempt to titillate people to sell more sleaze..

Sample this. These are some of the front page articles of the times of India website of the same day (11^th Dec-09).:-

Well, please opine whether is this what looks like the national news paper of a country which is accused of being overtly conservative and nauseatingly sentimental. May be this is just a reflection of our society and priorities. We give so much weightage on what an actor’s opinion on a river is, or what was it “Bombay” used instead of “Mumbai” or how he dare this or how she dare that, that we stop thinking for a moment that how much we are being pushed forward to be a dumber society. Here, this is the newspaper, that educates thousands of English speaking families in India, teaches young minds that dressing funny/funky is happening, how to satisfy your women in bed, who are the famous actresses who posed nude for a magazine (along with their photographs of course-sans the reproductive organs) etc. etc.

Take for example Delhi times or Dehradun times which will have photographs of wild parties and people who nobody knows except those in that party. But the photographs and captions (like Deepali Malhotra sizzles in blue polka dot top and zebra print skirts or Rahul Batra in his cool green shades) sound that they are ‘the people’ to know and it takes a dork not to know them. What the problem is that the people shown in the pic don’t even represent 1% of the society but do become role model and representation of so many of the Deepus,Bablus,Pinkys,Rajus, Guddis and Pappus who slog late hours studying/worrying/pretending/hoping for so many entrance exams, decent class marks or daily beating by Pitajis or masterjis. Sorry, that was a bad example but how good these party photographs and insightful articles (like where to keep your tongue while smooching) are for the people anyway?

And it is not a new trend that Times of India had started. The have slowly, deliberately, intelligently and continuously made the Indian public more tolerant and aware (so to say) over the years. Probably one of the foresighted marketing gurus in Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd realized that sex sells! No matter whether it is done openly or covertly. They have given us the small doses of obscenity over the years, raising the bar each time. We were shocked earlier but passed it on as a one time affair or interesting bit of information.We were amused later and were finally habituated.I would say that Times of India has much to contribute to what we call “Brash Delhi culture” that is today.

Well now it is upto our society to react to this and chalk out its priorities. How would they want their children to have a better understanding of the world? We can either let Times of India shape the thinking and point of view of the impressionable young minds. Or we can just switch the news paper and block http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/.

Me, myself and US...part 1

Well it finally came down on upon me. After trying to stay low for several months (6 to be precise), not getting my Visa stamped and refusing several offers to go to onsite from my DM, I had come to a stage where I no longer could be in denial mode. Why I didn’t want to go? I can’t remember it anymore..it was that I am a single child, or my friends are here or something...can’t put my finger exactly on it now. My DM (Rajiv Ranjan, a very kind man would say…after all the things I did at offshore-well that’s another story,some other time) convinced me to go to onsite promising me the term to be only for 2 months. My PM ,Amar, at that time advised me not to go to a shopping spree to get all decked and excited for my ‘phoren trip’. Well I took his advice and packed a small bag for myself and started googling ‘Things to do in Houston’, ‘Houston Nightlife’ and other unmentionable things to begin with.

I told my parents that I was to leave for ‘Amreeka’ in 4 days and will be back soon. My dad knowing me how I might have turned out to be over the years I kept away from home, told me few (actually it was not that few!) things not to do and try. He tried (ya just tried-nothing materialized)in me to invoke religion, culture, family values, love for the country and all the emotions I never thought he had for more than an hour. He never talked to me that long ever before, so it actually prompted me to ponder over it for few seconds. Alas the sown seeds could never germinate. A day before leaving to Houston, I came to know that my favorite elder cousin sister is in Houston. I always knew she was in US but never bothered to know exactly where. Can you believe this? All this years of not seeing her, I had to go to one city in US and she happens to be Houston. What are the odds for that? Well I can say good bye to my To-Do list, I thought.

My didi came to the airport to receive me. Isn’t it amazing that no matter how out of touch you are with your loved ones, you always meet them with a mix of shrieks and howls ? Well may be its just my family that gets so excited to see each other, but what is the point of keeping yourself restrained when you can legally do it. Inspite of the jetlag, when my Didi and I met we actually made quite a few heads turn. Well the excitement could be compared to what Jack Dawson had when he won the ticket to Titanic. My brother-in-law (whom I was meeting for the first time) had the look which said “Ya, another one from her weird family”. He remained surprisingly composed when anybody else could have easily disowned us because of the sheer embarrassment.