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Showing posts from May, 2009

Election Introspection

In the 2009 Indian general elections, the Indian National Congress (Congress) won 206 seats and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 116 seats out of a total of 543 seats. Five years ago, the Congress and the BJP had won 145 and 138 seats respectively. A jubilant Sonia Gandhi reiterated that Manmohan Singh will be Congress Party’s choice for the prime minister. Manmohan Singh will be the first Prime Minister after Jawaharlal Nehru to return to power after a full five-year term. In short, Indian electorate’s love affair with the Nehru-Gandhi family continued. Most of the poll pundits had predicted a spilt verdict and regional parties would be crucial in forming the government. This was completely dismissed by the “Indian Voter” who chose stability over the change. The rejection of the Left and its brigade would be the best example for the decision made by the Indian electorate. What went wrong for BJP or what clicked for Congress? There is a fundamental truth to political communication:

Poverty in India

“60+ years of Independence.” We are still a developing country; we are looked down as place of hungry people. We have enough swanky cars on street; we also have equal number of homeless people on streets of our city. We are posting impressive year on year growth in our GDP, boast about having foreign reserves which runs into billions of dollars. Still, poverty in India is still rampant despite an impressive economic growth. So, why are we not able to eliminate poverty? In general, Poverty can be defined as a situation when people are unable to satisfy the basic needs of life. According to the definition by Planning Commission of India, poverty line is drawn with an intake of 2400 calories in rural areas and 2100 calories in urban areas. If a person is unable to get that much minimum level of calories, then he/she is considered as being below poverty line. The World Bank uses an income cut off of Rs 21.6 per day in urban areas and Rs 14.3 per day in rural areas (at 2005 prices) to defin