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Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Organization Culture

Whenever any organization gets success it celebrates and it is a social common phenomena. It is generally noted that credit of success mostly goes only to technical peoples and common administrative, operational, core team & support staff is not given their due credit. But when any success comes everyone has a contribution in it according to his/her profile. I am not saying that technical people should be stopped from giving credit as surely they are directly involved with it but the other members of organization who are indirectly involved must not be forgotten.

So Dear Friends whenever your team/organisation celebrates make sure that everyone is part of it whether a peon/driver or Chairman, each individual must get his part of credit.

Saturday, May 23, 2009

Crorepati MPs

In recent election many candidates tried their luck and almost all the major political parties have given their tickets to the candidates who are full of money and muscle power and even did not have a objection on their criminals background. It is a common fact that rich are not much aware about the problem of middle & lower class problem, they just know how to exploit their juniors. In new Lok Sabha their are more crorepati MPs than in 2004 Lok Sabha and more number of MPs with criminal record in comparison to last Lok Sabha. Even Election Commission have accepted that it is not successful to stop use of money in election and about use of muscle power we all know openly. Voters are threatened openly and stopped from casting their vote. The most important fact that all the young MPs in new Lok Sabha are son/daughters of famous leaders and belongs to political families and this point makes a international impact on our Democracy.

I want to put few points regarding improvement in Political & Election System which are as follows :-

Candidates from middle, poor & small farmers must be motivated and provided support to fight election and go to parliament to solve the problems as they knows better about common man problem.

Ultra Rich candidates must have some limitation to fight election like Qualification, separate their individual interest from social interest by taking undertaking and let them put their all extra money for charitable causes. Extra Money means money above a particular limit or level specified by Election Commission.

No person should be allowed to fight the election who is having any type of criminal record and if any standing candidate is found or do such act he / she must be immediately terminated from his/her post.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Marriage System in India

In Indian culture whenever any marriage is arranged the parents of boy & girl make a estimate of expenditure to be spent on various items like jewellery, cloths, sweets, furniture, traveling and other miscellaneous expenses. Parents of girls have to arrange for all household goods, bike/car, bungalow/flat, etc for the new couple according to their estimate and capacity while on the other side boys parents gives jewellery, cloths to the new married bride and boys parents give presents/gifts to their own sisters and daughters. The estimate of both sides is generally remains same or have some minor differences but the amount spent by girls parents or we can say the gifts/goods given by girls parents in marriage is counted as Dowry which sometimes raises a question in my mind that why the only girls parents expenditure is counted as Dowry? Why not the expenditure of Boys parents are counted as Dowry? Here I would like to clarify that I am strongly against any forced demand from girls parents but the help to establish new couple should not be counted as dowry while the couple must take care that they stands at their own feet's without having much problems for their parents.

If want to change the above mentioned system then court marriage/marriage in temple/shrine/church/religious place can be opt in which only girl, boy & their parents goes to complete the procedure of marriage and no relatives/friends needs to be invited. No function/party (lunch & dinner) will be offered to anyone, but it will remove the social linking from society so to preserve society values a joint dinner/lunch party may be organized by both side parents). No amount will be spent on celebration and No Gifts/cloths/jewellery will be given to bride/groom and they must settle themselves at their own. THE IMPORTANT THINGS TO BE NOTED THAT MARRIAGE MUST BE ARRANGED ONLY WHEN BRIDE/GROOM THEMSELVES HAVE ENOUGH RESOURCES IN THEIR POCKET TO ESTABLISH THEIR NEW FAMILY.

On blog of my friend I come to know about a matrimonial web site which works for the bachelors to marry without dowry the site is http://idontwantdowry.com. If you are a bachelor and your are against you can register on this site.

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Election Commissioner Quraishi: Mammoth LS Elections

India successfully conducted 9th Lok Sabha (Parliamentary) election in last 2 months. The results are out and the new government will be in place in next few days. In this article- taken from Rediff portal- Election Commissioner Dr S Y Quraishi on Election 2009 gives his opinion on various issues in an interview to Sheela Bhatt.

His take on Election 2009

First of all, I would like to mention that, like the previous elections, India's election is not just an electoral exercise, but an event of such a magnitude that will never be seen in the world.

We have a large electorate, 714 million voters; we have more than 8 lakh (800,000) polling booths, each polling booth has a team. We have constituted another interesting institution called the booth level officer -- about 8.28 lakh people.

The idea is, in your own locality, somebody known to you is there all the time, round the year. So, if you have any problem, any query, whether your name is on the roll or not, you can go to him or her. And we have also asked political parties to appoint booth level assistants.

We deploy about 7 million to 8 million people to run the election including the security forces. They are trained at various levels. Each booth has to have a mode of communication so that we get to know within 10 minutes if anything goes wrong. This is something we tried for the first time in 2009.

We developed a very unique programme called COMET, which is communication for election tracking. This was used for the first time here. The idea was that we should be able to communicate with every presiding officer of every polling booth.

We knew the landline or the mobile number in the village. If that was not there, wireless sets of the police, satellite telephones or if nothing else, a runner to go to the nearest telephone, and tell us if anything goes wrong. This arrangement works as a great deterrent.

Secondly, this time we tried vulnerability mapping. In lots of areas, weaker sections were not allowed to vote, they used to be intimidated. There is domination by criminals. We made sure that there was no intimidation. We identified 90,000 such polling stations which were vulnerable where we took preventive action against 373,000 people. We rounded them and booked them. We told them that we know you and if you misbehave, we know where you are. These were great deterrents.

The Naxalite problem

This election was particularly important because of the Naxal problem. The Maoist problem has increased over the years and about 118,000 polling stations in 79 parliamentary constituencies were in Naxal-affected areas.

So we worked on a three pronged strategy to deal with that. First we decided that we will hold the election in the first phase itself.

The logic was that in the first phase we will be able to give our security forces three to four weeks in advance to go there, understand the area, dominate the area and conduct the elections. Because, in the subsequent phase the time available for the forces to move from one place to another is much less (2/3 days) and that is not enough.

Secondly, we make sure that elections were simultaneous in all Naxal-affected states, because the Naxals would not be able to cross over from one state to another and create trouble.

Thirdly, our polling time in these areas was 7 am to 3 pm so that the polling parties could return in daylight itself to safer areas and be evacuated by helicopter.

So broadly, this was the magnitude. I just don't think that these arrangements failed when the serial blasts occurred. How many blasts occurred to compared to normal times? As you know, the Naxals have been attacking even the police headquarters.

In the entire five-phase election, there were about 30 deaths. Unfortunate they were, but in view of the magnitude of the problem, this is a small price we have to pay.

Hats off to our security forces, our polling personnel, who discharged their duties in the most difficult situations. Every state has its own set of problems. I mention the Naxalites, which affects about 17 states.

States like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar have different kind of problems. Some states have money power, the use of black money in elections is very high.

Then in Jammu and Kashmir there is the threat of militants and separatism.

So every state has its own set of problems which we identify and deal with accordingly. I think our strategy and our performance is for everybody to see.

Overzealous steps taken by Election Commission?

There is only one case which became debatable. A state director general of police was indulging in loose talk. That was because his understanding of the field conditions was very poor. He has never been posted in the field.

With great difficulty we get security forces from home ministry to conduct the elections. He thought these forces are available; he sent them for handling the Naxalite problems. These forces are there only to conduct the election. That was the basic flaw in his understanding. So we told him that you don't know.

The deployment of forces was done in consultation with the home ministry, the director generals of all the central police organisations, the state DGP and superintendents of police.

Actually, it is the SPs at the grassroots level who made the deployment plan in consultation with us and our observers. We sent about 2,100 observers. They are all senior officers. So the neutrality of these observers is the biggest guarantee. People have faith in it.

The money factor

The violation of the election code is not as bad as it used to be earlier. You should understand that the model code is a creation of political parties themselves, it is not a law. And we find that in many cases, it is more effective than the law.

In the law what happens is that if you violate the law, we'll file an FIR (First Information Report) with the police. That means the ball is out of our hand and the police officers may someday, in a few months, conduct an inquiry or may not. Then he will put up a challan in court. It will take years, 10 or 20 to 30 years.

Whereas in the model code violation case, we write to the senior officer, the chief minister or even the prime minister for that matter. If there is a violation, we write to them. And we request that if you have violated the code, please reply within 24 hours. And the reply comes.

No senior politician wants to violate the model code, and the very fact that a notice has been issued is a great deterrent.

Unfortunately, we admit we have not been able to control money factor, because the money that we are talking about is black money. No government in the world has been able to control black money.

There are two kinds of expenditure. One is the money which you spend on hiring vehicles, postures, banners and flags, and media space.

Our expenditure observers are able to take expenditure statements from the candidate. They have to file these in the course of the campaign. Our observers monitor whether there is an understatement. That much we have been able to control effectively.

But if it is the black money, we cannot track transactions. But there are hundreds of model conduct teams roaming around to see if any violation takes place. For instance, in Karnataka, we seized Rs 29 crore (Rs 290 million).

In some states, traditionally, there is more money available, there is more prosperity.

Thirdly, when you say that model code is violated blatantly, we know for sure that violations are much fewer this year, but the visibility has increased because of the media explosion.

Low voting

I don't think it was overall low voting. It was 50 to 60 percent. But the fact that people have started talking about percentages is a new thing. We have seen that in urban areas like Mumbai, Delhi, Allahabad, the turnout used to be low. The so-called educated people will sit in their drawing room and criticise the government and politicians, and that is totally wrong. Because if you do not participate in democracy, you have no business to criticise.

The Election Commission's budget

Our budget is just Rs 20 crore (Rs 200 million). We are a very small organisation conducting one of the biggest exercises in the world. We are just 300 people in the Election Commission. That's all. It's remarkable.

In every state, we have a Chief Electoral Officer supported by eight to ten people. That's all we have. But for the election, we can call on anybody. That is how 7 to 8 million people are deployed.

Money is not the problem. For India, the democratic exercise is very important. The election system is 100 percent free, fair and democratic, and we have no doubt about it.

The only complaint that we have been receiving was that some names were not found in the electoral rolls. That may be due to several reasons. One, it may be computer error, or maybe some inefficiency. After all, 7 million people were not regular members of our team. So some of them maybe just lazy, they may be inefficient, or they may be deliberate mistakes.

Sometimes we get complaints that the whole chunk of the population, which is considered hostile, have been struck off. Then we conduct inquiries.

The electoral process is dynamic, it can never be considered as complete. Even the Supreme Court has said it can never be considered complete and perfect. But it has to be near perfect.

Logistics

We are proud to say that Bharat Electronics Ltd and Electronic Corporation of India Ltd, both government undertakings, manufacture the EVM machines under our guidance and that of a technical committee headed by a professor of IIT, Madras.

This committee of experts has been constituted by Parliament. We are very happy that they oversee any innovation. The EVM is a cheap machine; it costs about Rs 8,000 to Rs 10,000.

The machine has two units, one is a central processing unit, and the other is a variant of one control unit and ballot unit. So, the control unit has all the data.

One CU can handle 16 candidates. So if the number of candidates is more than 16, then we need two machines. If there are 33, then three machines, up to 64 candidates, four machines this can handle. Beyond that, we have to go for old style ballot paper.

I will tell you an interesting story. We are very sensitive. In the last phase polling, we spent 3, 4 days on just two polling stations in Kashmir, and in Ladakh, which were at the altitude of 13,000 feet, and where our air force helicopters made several attempts to land, but could not.

So we dispatched six people in two parties by foot, in knee deep snow, for 40 km. They walked for two days and two nights and then conducted the poll. They had taken along with them satellite phones. There were just 37 voters. They were as important to us as anybody.

We made a special arrangement for counting too because our officers could not come back because of the snowfall.

We authorised one of the two senior officers and declared him an ARO (Assistant Returning Officer) legally. He counted the votes and conveyed it through the satellite phone. That result was announced first before the rest of the counting began.

Our AVMs are stand alone machines; it does not communicate with anyone outside. The innocence of this stand alone machine will be lost if there is a remote control. There were just repolls in 660 booths out of 838,000 booths. We are proud of what we have done.

We have the satisfaction and sheer pride in doing such a great job. Three days ago, we received an e-mail from a teacher in Jamnagar, Gujarat. He said he was so touched by the whole election process, he wrote, "I don't want my remuneration; tell me where to return it."

I feel proud to be an election commissioner. It's a great satisfaction to strengthen Indian democracy. That makes us proud as Indians.

Monday, May 18, 2009

Loksabha Election Result

On May 16, 2009 counting of votes happened all over India and many key candidates have lost the race while many of them was able to retain heir victory and many new candidates emerged. The two surprising facts which forced me to think that is counting system foolproof or their are some chances of manipulation. What are the loopholes in the counting process. The first incident is that every news channel informed that Ex-Home Minister Mr. P.C Chidambaram have lost from Shivganga constituency as well as Mrs. Maneka Gandhi also lost but later on recounting reports flashed for shivganga and Mr. P.C Chidambaram declared won and Madam Maneka also declared won. BIG SURPRISE, is the officers on duty did not taken proper care before declaring results or the some thing has happened under the table. On many seats while some candidate in starting is trailing later on got the victory while the leading candidate have to face the defeat. Like at Bhiwani Mahendargarh seat in starting Mr. Ajay Chautala of INLD is leading and at last Mrs. Shruti Chowdury, INC won the seat. The same thing happened at Amritsar seat where Mr. Navjot Singh Sidhu is trailing in morning and later on won the seat while Mr. Vinod Khanna is leading in starting have to face the defeat at Gurdaspur seat. Ex-Minister Jaipal Reddy is trailing in starting now won the seat.Even soem channels said Mr.Shatrughan Sinha is trailing behind Mr. Shekhar Suman in Patna Sahib but now won the seat.

I am not raising a finger on counting system but wants to notify about loopholes may be due to mistakes of person who are handling the process. Sometimes one news channels says something while the others is just opposite to that so who should we believe?

Why it was so? Counting system must be fare & transparent and result should be declared after complete counting. Also if i am at mistake on some points above kindly notify me.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

CIA and ISI together created Taliban, says Zardari

Taliban, USA Policy, Pakistan Scenario, India foreign policy, India America & Pakistan

In a interview Pakistani President Mr. Asif Ali Zardari said that Talibani are created jointly by CIA of America and ISI of Pakistan.

He publicly said that Taliban is a result of US and Pakistan past exercise. He also blamed United States of America for supporting the Ex Military ruler of Pakistan Mr. Pervez Musharraf who is supporting Taliban. He also said that Pakistani Army & Intelligence Agencies are under the command of Parliament .

Above consent of creating Taliban by Pakistani President shows that India should not totally dependent on USA as its policy are not completely in favour of India. It is worth to be noted that till now USA have not denied these allegations. So India must have its own independent foreign & international policy. Although I will say that India must increase its trading and bilateral ties with America but in a attentive manner.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

I Vote Nobody: 49-0

My friend -Sachin Kamra from New Delhi- has sent this article for publication of our blog. The last phase of the current Lok Sabha elections is due in next 3 days.
Did you know that there is a system in our constitution, as per the 1969 act, in section " 49-O" that a person can go to the polling booth, confirm his identity, get his finger marked and convey the presiding election officer that he/she doesn't want to vote anyone! Yes such a feature is available, but obviously past + present leaders have never disclosed it.
This is called "49-O".

Why should You go and say " I VOTE NOBODY". Because, in a ward, if a candidate wins, say by 123 votes, and that particular ward has received "49-O" votes more than 123, then that polling will be canceled and will have to be re-polled. Not only that, but the candidature of the contestants will be removed and they cannot contest the re-polling, since people had already expressed their decision on them.
This would bring fear into parties and hence look for genuine candidates for their parties for election. This would change the way; of our whole political system. It is seemingly surprising why the election commission has not revealed such a feature to the public.
Please spread this news to as many as You know.
Seems to be a wonderful weapon against corrupt parties in India . Show Your power, expressing Your desire not to vote for anybody, is even more powerful than voting. So don't miss Your chance. So either vote, or vote not to vote (vote 49-O) and pass this information to all.
Use your voting right for a better INDIA . Share this with as many as You can. Because sharing is caring. It is caring about our dear Mother India.