World-Me-My viewpoint

One more stage in General elections in India got completed with two to go. Indian Election Commission should be applauded for its efforts in conducting the elections in a very peaceful manner so far. Another great feature of this election is uniformly higher voting percentage compared to the earlier elections due to the efforts of Election Commission. Coming back to the politicians, several of them displayed either foot in the mouth disease or arrogance over the last one week. There is the case of a politician from Congress who tendered an unconditional apology to a politician of BJP who has put on a defamation case. There is another politician from Telangana who sent notices to actor turned politician (?) Pawan Kalyan for accusing him of having business relationship with another politician from Andhra. Then there is the case of Mr Chiranjeevi of Congress (brother of Pawan Kalyan but both are in different camps now) who tried to barge into polling booth ahead of the people wai...

Gods must be crazy is what I felt when I heard great Chhote Sardar declared that Maa Ganga invited / invoked him to contest elections from Varanasi. May be Maa Ganga was a member of the so called central election committee of BJP and impressed upon other members of the committee to make Chhote Sardar to contest from Varanasi. If the gods really started taking an interest in indian politics why asking one to contest elections at all. They can as well make one a PM or even a President directly (a la Gerald Ford a former American President). Coming to the talk of Chhote Sardar, what happened to the real sardar (Vallabhai Patel) now a days whom the great Chhote Sardar invoked frequently at the beginning of his canvassing. Believe the name was invoked only once during the last one month in Hyderabad (because the original sardar played a role in annexation of Nizam's kingdom). Even in his interviews to TV channels one can see only a statue of Swami Vivekananda on his table. Seems th...

Campaign is in full swing for the next set of parliamentary constituencies. Claims and counter claims are in full swing. There is one more claimant for better governance now. Ms Jayalalithaa (Amma) of Tamil Nadu claims her government is better than the so called well advertised Gujarat model. She is one more in the long list of claimants for great governance. Unfortunately, Tamil Nadu may not be as great as it appears to be on paper. Unlike Gujarat there were severe and crippling power cuts in Tamil Nadu including Chennai. There was a promise by the current government at the time of assembly polls that the power problem will be resolved in 3 months once comes power. Power came to Amma but not to the people of Tamil Nadu. Whatever said and done, there is hardly any improvement in the infrastructure even in the capital city Chennai. The roads are still bad with very heavy water logging at the foot of the flyovers during the rainy season. The water levels will be around ankle high at th...

Opinion Polls Latest opinion poll by NDTV shows BJP and its allies is expected to get around 275 with the ruling Congress led front getting around 111 and rest by all the other parties together. This appears to be a far cry from the initial euphoria when Modi came into picture as BJP's prime ministerial candidate. The expectations were that BJP on its own will get the simple majority. Is there some weakening in the BJP's strength over the period? May be I am stretching my imagination too far, but I feel the final tally could be around 250 for BJP, 130-140 for Congress for the rest. If BJP and its current allies together get only this kind of a tally they will be in for a trouble in the long run as they may have to depend on one of the three ladies viz., Didi (Mamata Banerjee), Amma (Jayalalitha) or Mayavathi (behenji). If this happens we can again see the same state of policy inaction in future also. Alliances & Campaigning All the pre-poll alliances are set now ...

At last the greatest show in India has started with first phase completed on 7th April. This is expected to go for next five weeks with the campaigning heating up as the polling dates in important states draws near. Already lot of controversial utterings by the leaders are on air. There is Amit Shah of BJP and Azam Khan  of Samajwadi Party and Masood of Congress airing controversial remarks. Latest to come out is that of Mr Azam Khan dragging the religion of the soldiers who stormed the heights of Kargil during the proxy (or almost a full) war during the regime of Mr Atal Behari Vajpaye. This particular set of comments be they uttered now or 2-3 years back are highly objectionable and should be condemned. Coming to the comments of Azam Khan, yesterday I had the misfortune of watching a debate (??) on Times Now hosted by Mr Arnab Goswami. I have seen debates on several issues hosted by Mr Arnab over the period. This man is known for his loud, disrupting and passing unnecessary ...