India Votes - and How!

#328 by MaheshG2
``Check out the website and convince yourself that Tamil Nadu is far ahead of Bihar development wise.``
It does not appear to be so for my parents who have to struggle every day to get water. My parents are not poor by any sense of the word but they have to struggle. Imagine the plight of poor people.
Water is bought and sold in Madras. There was a time one thought water is God`s gift and every human being should have a free access to it. Not anymore. Does it matter what the statistics say about TN and Bihar? To me, both are at the same level. The same kind of dirty politics, the same congestion on the roads. Perhaps there is better security in Madras. My parents at least are safe in their apartment and i do not hear of any security problems.
Sridhar

#327 by gujjubania
``Maybe the good doc might want to migrate to Bihar. ``
The day i come back, it will be to give back not to take anything from Mother India.
Bihar may be a good place to start.
Sridhar

re:#326 by mohar11
You guys are just twisting my argument.
I only commended Lalloo Yadav`s policy of fostering communal harmony, which is so essential for peace and stability and ultimately for any govt to implemement its policies. Imagine what would have happened if Modi`s brand of politics had caught on and BJP had made the whole of India a large Hindutva Lab. Would BJP`s pragmatic economic policies have worked then?

Modi is still around and so are some hardcore BJP elements. ABV had kept these goons in check but not anymore. Watch the fun now.
Sridhar

re:#333 by soysauce
I agree that BJP deserved to be booted out. Despite its pragmatic economic policies, it lost sight of the fact that millions of Indians live on less than 2 dollars a day and needed to be benefitted. I am, however, sorry to see ABV go. He is a good man. A good man in a the wrong party!
It is difficult to believe that the water problem of Madras cannot be solved through scientific means if there is a political will behind it. Such will was shown across the political spectrum when the Tamil extremism (of the LTTE brand) raised its ugly head and became unpalatable after Rajiv Gandhi`s assasination.
This leads to only one conclusion: there must be a powerful lobby in favor of keeping the water shortage alive and benefitting from it. That is a big shame.
Sridhar

all this legal mumbo-jumbo is confusing and useless, really...why not have bukhari (now that he supports bjp) issue a statement that selection of sonia as pm would be unislamic...that should put an end to all this...

maybe manmohan singh should nominate narsimha rao to be deputy prime minister :O)

Kar lo baath:

http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IEH20040518151930&Page=H&Title=Top+Stories&Topic=304&

As a five-year-old PIL against Sonia Gandhi`s foreign origin sprang to life today with the Delhi High Court advancing its hearing from July 20 to May 26, the NDA Government`s affidavit in that case makes it clear: Constitutionally and legally, there is no bar on Sonia becoming the Prime Minister of India.

The 18-page affidavit was submitted by Arun Jaitley`s Law Ministry in 2001 in response to the petition filed by the Rashtriya Mukti Morcha when Sonia staked claim for the first time in 1999 after a vote of no-confidence had been passed against the Vajpayee Government by a margin of a single vote.

The NDA`s affidavit, sharply at odds with its political rhetoric, said:

* ``There is only one class of citizens in India and once a citizenship is acquired ... there is no distinction in the citizens thereafter either under the Constitution or under the Citizenship Act 1955.``

* The law does not discriminate between a citizen by birth and citizen by registration.

* Sonia Gandhi was registered as a citizen in 1983 because she was found to have fulfilled two criteria: she was married to an Indian citizen and had been living in India for at least five years.

* The Vajpayee Government also demolished the petitioner`s attempt echoed by BJP leaders now_to draw strength from the US Constitution which expressly bars a citizen not born in that country from becoming its President.

The fact that the Indian Constitution contains no such distinction shows ``a conscious effort`` on the part of the founding fathers ``not to make a distinction between the single class of citizens,`` the affidavit said.

Aur kar lo baath:
http://www.dailypioneer.com/indexn12.asp?main_variable=front%
5Fpage&file_name=story1%2Etxt&counter_img=1?headline=Whose~inner~voice?

``The most damaging clarification that has apparently been sought relates to Article 102 of the Constitution that says: ``A person shall be disqualified for being chosen as, and for being, a member of either House of Parliament`` on any or more of five possible grounds. Clause(d) of the same Article says ``... or is under any acknowledgement of allegiance or adherence to a foreign state``.



The term ``adherence`` had to be clarified specifically as Ms Gandhi in her affidavit before the Returning Officer of the Rai Bareli parliamentary constituency had stated that she owned ancestral property, namely portion of a house, in Orbassano, Italy, the country of her origin. This fact of ownership, legal experts say, makes her subject to Italian law in this matter and could be interpreted as ``adherence`` to a foreign country. Since this portion of the ancestral property was apparently bequeathed to her by her father in his will, she inherited it only after his death. Consequently, the property was not her`s when she filed her 1999 nomination affidavit.


Article 103 states that ``if any question arises as to whether a member of either House of Parliament has become subject to disqualification mentioned in Article 102, the question shall be referred for the decision to the President and his decision shall be final``. Clause 2 of the Article says: ``Before giving any decision on such question, the President shall obtain the opinion of the Election Commission and shall act according to such opinion.``


This means that the President is required by the Constitution to undertake an elaborate process of examining the legal and constitutional issues involved. Thus, Ms Gandhi`s swearing-in could not happen before the matter was fully clarified and resolved.``

rsridhar,
You seem to have left your beloved Bihar more than 15 years ago. Bihar is no longer called as Bihar. It has graduated to the lawless lalooland. I am quite surprised by your praise of Laloo and Bihar. Infact you are the first educated, non-Yadav, non-Bihari who is singing hymns in praise of Laloo and his land. Thats a pity.
I really don`t think that you know anything about Bihar. Maybe your hatred for BJP has made you blind enough to compliment Bihar for its achievements.
I hope you go and settle in the land of El Dorado and find for yourself why Biharis are migrating in such huge numbers and are working as manual laborers all over the country.
Moreover, regarding your comment of corruption in Tamil Nadu. It is prevalent all over the country. Remember, the slogan ``Laloo kha gaya hamara chara``. Obviously, with no other industry around thats all he can manage.
Jai Hind. (or may be Jai Bihar)

=== Interact Filtered ===
view this users filtered interacts

#321
Well, well, wonders never cease. I agree with you on what happened in TN to an extent. It was largely a matter of choosing the lesser of the two evils and to the pessimistic voters whoever is not in power is the lesser evil.
The water scarcity also played its part. Metro water is trucked from elsewhere and the contracts for these are given to a few with Harimau`s amma on down demanding a cut. The voters are not fools to think that the government can deliver rain. It`s just that when something goes deeply awry you need to blame someone and whom to blame more than the government?
I hate to think where madras will be in 10-odd years given the exploding population and the perennial drought...
These elections might have gone differently had the voting been held a few months earlier. TDP & ADMK would probably have fared better.
The results are not a mandate for Sonia since the congress did not explicitly campaign with her as the candidate for PM. Mulayam & the communists did not want her to be the PM at the outset. Anyone who claims that this was a vote for Sonia is mistaken. It was a combination of anxiety on the part of minority communities, some short-sighted decisions on the part of the BJP in choosing partners, a clumsy campaign and ill timing. I`m glad to see them booted out though, especially after seeing Vajpayee posing with cads like Modi & Thakre...

sadna,

fair enough...i had read the article when it came out and thought you were referring to what tavleen said about herself -``It arouses in me the worst kind of chauvinistic nationalism``, and not about what togadia MIGHT do.

sridhar,

pbs interviewed m. singh in 2001...an excerpt...

INTERVIEWER: For a non-economist, non-Indian audience, what was the key change you made here?

MANMOHAN SINGH: We got government off the backs of the people of India, particularly off the backs of India`s entrepreneurs. We introduced more competition, both internal competition and external competition. We simplified and rationalized the tax system. We made risk-taking much more attractive... [and] much more profitable. So we tried to create an environment conducive to the growth of business.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/commandingheights/shared/minitextlo/int_manmohansingh.html

sridhar sir

you are a fan of laloo and that is amazing. i only hope you try and stay in bihar for a week and then come back on this forum to tell us how the secular laloo rules.

your arguments are getting stale. and dont tell this to any educated person from bihar, he will surely think you have gone mad.

=== Interact Filtered ===
view this users filtered interacts

rsridhar #321,

I can`t believe that you think Bihar and Tamil Nadu are in the same league.

Tamil Nadu with a 75% literacy and Bihar with less than 50%.

http://www.censusindia.net/2001housing/rank.html

Check out the website and convince yourself that Tamil Nadu is far ahead of Bihar development wise.