By the ruling class, for the ruling class
Author has talked about the demerits of First-Past-the-Post (FPTP) type of election system and provided alternative to it.
What is FPTP?
In it the person who gets the maximum vote wins.
Demerits of FPTP:
1. person not favored by majority of the population of a constituency may win. It may happen that the person winning does not even gets half the votes and wins because of opposition being divided.
2. A single winner in elections with such extraordinarily diverse polity could not come without the support of the majority party. It followed that most interest groups would be forced to come to terms with the majority party, paving ways for co-option and other manipulations. The diversity of interests in the country may still throw up many parties, which could only aggravate the inherently competitive FPTP elections. That in turn would only mean increasingly huge expenditure, to be met by big businesses, and the use of existing fault lines like caste, community and religion. It necessarily evolved into an oligopolistic power structure of all ruling classes, irrespective of parties, fortified by multilayered defences such as the police and the military.
Now author tries to explain that since mainstream parties are most benefited by FPTP system and they are the only one who can spend the limit of 70 lakhs per candidate lots of money (even more than the limit ) is spent in elections. Now there is no other way to recover the money invested but through corruption and this vicious cycle goes on.
Some data by Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR):
- In the 15th Lok Sabha election, there were 1,249 crore pati candidates, of whom over 300 reached Parliament. The crime record closely correlates with their riches, and both exist across parties.
- The parliamentarians with criminal cases belonging to the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party, the two main political parties, were 24 and 29 in 2004 respectively, which went up to 44 each in 2009.
- The analysis by ADR and National Election Watch (NEW) has found that the wealth of 304 re-contesting MPs had grown by 289 per cent.
3. It does not ensure proportional representation of all the groups in parliament. For example, Dalits in India are 17 per cent but being in the minority in every constituency, one of them would never get elected independently in the FPTP system; not even from the so-called reserved constituencies.
4. once the elections are over, there is no motivation for debate in Parliament on policy content. The most material policies of the government that impacted people (such as the imposition of Emergency and the neoliberal economic reforms) were never discussed in Parliament.
The alternative system author proposes is Proportional Representation (PR) whic is followed in mots European democracies.
In PR votes are cast not for individuals but for parties or social groups and then according to the percentage of votes acquired parties or groups have their representation in the parliament.
Now advantages of it are:
1. Taking example of Dalits PR will assure them their share in Parliament and legislatures and may even create a centripetal force to expand their constituency.
2. There would be no cut-throat competition as every interest group would be reasonably assured of its share of representation. The competition would then shift to the ring of Parliament to shape the policies in the interests of the majority of the people.
3. The theoretical fallacy in the FPTP elections that the elected representatives hardly enjoy consent of even half the voters is overcome in the PR system that ensures most interest groups their due share of representation.
4. The intense competition of the FPTP elections leading to huge resource expenditure and consequent rise of corruption would also be eliminated in the PR system.
5. Most importantly, in the context of India, it would curb the vile motives in the ruling classes to divide people on the lines of caste and community.
In a context of deepening confrontation and sporadic violence in eastern Ukraine which has so far left three people dead and many more injured, Russia, the United States, and the European Union reached an agreement of sorts in Geneva on April 17. The deal calls on all illegal groups in the region to lay down their arms, and to vacate government buildings and other public spaces they have occupied. In return, the protesters would be offered an amnesty for all capital crimes, and the national government in Kiev would start public consultations on a devolution of powers to the country’s provinces. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) is to oversee and help implement the agreement, and will be augmented by monitors from the U.S., Russia, and EU countries.
India and China now plan to hold regular meetings among their top operational commanders in tune with the stepped-up military confidence-building measures being implemented to manage and defuse troop face-offs, with both sides realising that a political settlement of the long-standing boundary issue will take time.
The top-level contacts, of course, will not be restricted to just the military. While Chinese defence minister General Chang Wanquan is already scheduled to visit India after the new government assumes office here in May-June, President Xi Jinping might also come calling later in the year.
On Tuesday, the focus was on making the new border defence cooperation agreement (BDCA), inked during PM Manmohan Singh's visit to Beijing last October, fully operational on the ground.
The two sides discussed implementation of "different practical measures", which ranged from hotlines between formation commanders and additional border personnel meeting (BPM) points to "small platoon-level tactical exercises" and "no-tailing" of each other's patrols along the LAC.
It was also decided that the slightly larger bilateral "Hand-in-Hand" counter-terrorism exercise will be conducted at Barrackpore (West Bengal) in November, the first three editions of which were held in Kunming (2007), Belgaum (2008) and Miaoergang (2013).
On Tuesday, the focus was on making the new border defence cooperation agreement (BDCA), inked during PM Manmohan Singh's visit to Beijing last October, fully operational on the ground.
The two sides discussed implementation of "different practical measures", which ranged from hotlines between formation commanders and additional border personnel meeting (BPM) points to "small platoon-level tactical exercises" and "no-tailing" of each other's patrols along the LAC.
It was also decided that the slightly larger bilateral "Hand-in-Hand" counter-terrorism exercise will be conducted at Barrackpore (West Bengal) in November, the first three editions of which were held in Kunming (2007), Belgaum (2008) and Miaoergang (2013).
Supreme Court on Tuesday appointed a three-member panel to suggest measures to prevent road accidents and ensure accountability.
Acting on a public interest litigation plea filed by orthopaedic surgeon S. Rajasekaran, a Bench of Chief Justice P. Sathasivam and Justices Ranjan Gogoi and N.V. Ramana appointed the panel comprising Justice K.S. Radhakrishnan; the former Transport Secretary, S. Sundar; and the former Head of the Department, Traffic Engineering and Safety, Dr. Nishi Mittal. Justice Radhakrishnan, who retires as judge on May 14, will join the panel the next day.
Quoting figures furnished by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways in the volume, ‘Road Accidents in India 2010’, the Bench highlighted the increase in accidents and fatal cases between 1970 and 2010.
one accident takes place in the country every minute and one person dies in an accident every four minutes.
Writing the judgment, Justice Gogoi said: “Road traffic accidents have the potential of being one of the largest challenges to orderly human existence necessitating immediate and urgent intervention. Regular maintenance of all highways and roads by both the Central and State governments, in order to make the same traffic worthy, is the minimum that the citizens can expect and are entitled to. We hardly need to emphasise that it is the duty of the Central and State governments to ensure the availability of safe roads worthy of traffic.”
RBI for two-stage verification for online transactions
Worried over rising number of frauds in online banking, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has suggested that banks introduce two-stage authentication to ensure security of transactions.
The RBI report on ‘Enabling Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) in Payment System Applications’ said banks should also inform customers about risks associated with different types of online banking transaction.
It also said customers should be given the option to choose from different methods of authentication for ensuring security of online transactions.
There are various PKI-enabled electronic payments systems introduced by the RBI such RTGS, NEFT, CBLO, Forex Clearing, Government Securities Clearing, and Cheque Truncation System (CTS). In volume terms, these systems contributed 25.1 per cent whereas these systems contributed 93.7 per cent share to the total payment transactions carried out in 2012-13 in value terms.
Non-PKI enabled payment systems contributed 75 per cent in volume terms but only 6.3 per cent in value terms in 2012-13.
India concludes pact with U.S. on tax evasion under FATCA
India has concluded an ‘in substance’ agreement with the U.S. to combat possible tax evasion by Americans through Indian financial entities.
The ‘in substance’ agreement with India under the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) was concluded on April 11, the U.S. Treasury said.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) plans to issue guidelines for market intermediaries in this regard this fiscal, sources said. The U.S. said India had consented to Model 1 — Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) under FATCA.
As per Model 1, financial entities will be required to report information on U.S. account holders to the U.S. IRS (internal revenue service) through CBDT.
FATCA requires the U.S. government to sign IGAs with various countries, including India, where American individuals and companies may hold accounts and other assets.
Bhutan, India sign pact for developing hydro projects
India and Bhutan, on Tuesday, signed an agreement for the development of joint hydropower projects in a bid to further strengthen their bilateral strategic partnership. The framework ‘Inter-Governmental Agreement’ between Bhutan and India for the development of joint venture hydropower projects through the public sector undertakings of the two governments was inked here
The United States said on Tuesday it was watching North Korea “very closely” following South Korean warnings that Pyongyang may be preparing a fourth nuclear test ahead of a visit to Seoul by President Barack Obama.
North Korea has carried out three nuclear tests in the past eight years — one in October 2006, another in May 2009 and a third in February 2013.
Pakistan on Tuesday conducted a successful training launch of the short range surface-to-surface ballistic missile Hatf III (Ghaznavi), which can carry nuclear and conventional warheads to a range of 290 km.
The successful launch concluded the field training exercise of the strategic missile group of the Army Strategic Forces Command, a statement from the Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) said.
Super sir...:-)
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