Populist promises

Tamilnadu govt's populist promises to woo the voters are back as the elections are fast approaching. The last election, the CM had announced free colour TV's (but no commitment on uninterrupted power supply). Happened to see 5 lorries of 14" colour TV's outside Govt Boys High School.



I recently travelled through several villages and there are no differences between them - no good roads, no basic amenities for the public.



School kids have to wait for the buses which are not in good condition.



How can a colour TV quench the poor's thirst and hunger?

JP Nagar's engineers

The new councilors for Bangalore are yet to get in to action. When they start working, they should ensure that the departments talk to each other.



BWSSB has de-silted the drainages in JP Nagar on saturday and they have dumped the silt on the road. After 24 hours (today morning), I called the assistant executive Mr.Mohan. He said it should have been cleared by the health department. And inspite of Mr.Mohan's repeated calls (he said 10 times), health department had not taken action. But on saturdays, nobody works beyond noon or so, and the work could be taken up only by Monday. The workers also need to go where MLA's men find actions.  Today's rain washed away some silt.



Another instance is 9th Main, JP Nagar 2nd Phase has 3 pits dug by the BESCOM. This was dug 3 weeks back. For the first two weeks, BESCOM maintained that it was not dug by them. Now they take their own time to complete some wiring work before they could close it. God, its raining heavily every alternative days - should not this be taken up with high priority?



Yet another instance, the garbage collectors and ragpickers have a liking to burn the garbages near the transformers. The tall fire can easily eat into the space of transformer's feet and can lead to disasters. But nobody bothers. When I told about this to a senior BESCOM engineer, he asked me to write 'a cover story' to Times of India?



Is the corporation reporting to Times of India?

Election Flaws

It seems there was less than 48% of the public voted this time in the BBMP Elections (see link). There could be a plenty of reasons:

• People lost trust in the politics and politicians


• They do not know who is their candidate


• They do not know who is their right candidate


• Voters names are not listed and they returned empty handed. 


• Last time voters who did not find their names, would not have returned this time


• This is summer vacation - Most of the schools are closed and already several families are out of station


• This is summer time - People do not bother to stand in the queue


• None of the candidates are familiar to the localites


• Most of the candidates are uneducated and they promised heaven even without knowing what is implementable and what is not


• Anger that nothing (good) has been done to their area


• People travelling to other places and abroad cannot vote


• And just laziness and irresponsible attitude towards society - what else it could be?

I have a valid voter id issued in 2005. I had to walk to three different stalls to get the 'slip' and 'reference id'. Nobody knew which school was their polling booth. My photo was not in their list even though its 'computerized'.

Think of a well organized IPL (by the way, I am not against IPL - its a current trend; and its always easy to relate both good and bad) that has so many composite teams, various venues, TV - youtube telecast and sponsorship and above all 'team ownership'.  Every fan find his way either to watch the match in person and or on internet or his TV.  

The BBMP polls were delayed were for long. We had enough time to update the list. 

Most of the Bangalore residents have mobile connections, bank accounts, cars, and  a DTH connection. All these connections went through a systemic procedure and the public felt the need for it. On the other side, nobody mandated an electoral card.  

If only we had brought penalty or additional taxing system for non-voters, we would have seen 100% voting.   Everybody will get their electoral cards. 

And how about technology? Why cannot I vote through internet? 

And for the candidates, what do they intend to do if they win? and what do they intend to do if they lose?  You tried all sort of innovations to sell yourself - briyani, money, SMS ad, MMS ad, a seal on the newspaper, pamphlets, music on the road, and every possible way to show the public that 'you are there'. Question is 'where were you?'.