Voters Participation: Soul of Democracy

Louis L’Amour has rightly said that to make democracy work, we must be a notion of participants, not simply observers. One who does not vote has no right to complain. Democracy can be seen as an extension of people’s participation. It is a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a representative system of elections. Democracy will collapse without proper and fair participation of its citizens. Every vote reassures our democracy and makes it stronger.

In this context, general elections 2014 were proved to be historic. 66.44 percent voters comprising of 554.1 million people have accessed their franchise to vote. Prior to this, the highest turnout was recorded as 64.02 percent in 1984. Not only this, the gender gap between the male and female turnout was reduced by 1.55 percentage points in Lok Sabha elections 2014. 16 States and UTs recorded a higher women turnout. To add to the glory, women voters surpassed men for the first time ever in any Lok Sabha elections in nine States or Union Territories. The credit for achieving such figures lies with the efforts of Election Commission of India. No doubt engaging with and motivating such a large and diverse population to cast their vote was a gigantic task with myriad range of complexities and challenges.

Election Commission of India adopted Systematic Voters’ Education and Electoral Participation (SVEEP)programme to increase voters’ turnout both in terms of quality and quantity. SVEEEP formulates policies, lays down the framework, plans interventions and monitors implementation besides carrying out continuous interaction with voting publics, civil society groups and media. They broadly include situation analysis; systematic planning and implementation of targeted interventions (on IMF model) based on the situation analysis, mid programme review and monitoring and end term review. The communication interventions include multi-media and inter-personal communication, physical events and innovative activities for mobilization of people/community and voter Facilitation.

National Voters Day is one such initiative which was adopted in 2011 to reach out to masses of the country. Since then it is being observed every year with the objective to increase enrolment of voters and to make universal adult suffrage a complete reality. A series of mass interactive activities like symposiums, cycle rally, human chain, folk arts programmes, mini-marathon, competitions and awareness seminars will be organized on the fifth National Voters Day which will be celebrated on 25th January 2015 across the country. 25^th January is also the foundation day of the Commission , which came into being on this day in 1950.The theme for NVD 2015 is ‘Easy Registration; Easy Correction’. The Booth Level Officers (BLOs) in over 6 lakh (0.6 million) Polling Station areas will felicitate the newly registered voters in a brief ceremony and hand over their Elector Photo Identity Card (EPIC) to give the younger generation a sense of responsible citizenship. They will also be given a badge with the slogan “Proud to be a Voter – Ready to Vote”.

      It took a lot of convincing on part of civil societies and NGOs in sensitising people to exercise their valuable right. Several campaigns were launched to encourage masses especially the young generation, women and transgenders for leading them to polling booths. . They acted as a catalyst to spread voter education. It was due to combined efforts of NGOs, Civil Societies, Election Commission of India, etc that India is touching new heights of voters’ turnout.

            Free and fair elections are the life force of democracy. Credible elections at stipulated intervals have ever since enabled India’s peaceful transformative journey for inclusion and empowerment of common citizen. The justification of election as a key anchor of democracy comes from the fact that it translates the idea of people’s power to a physical reality. This can effectively happen only when people are able to exercise such power through informed participation.

Cooperation in the Field of Information & Communications Technology and Electronics (ICTE)

India and US Sign a Joint Declaration of Intent for Cooperation in the Field of Information & Communications Technology and Electronics (ICTE)

India and United States have signed a Joint Declaration of Intent for cooperation in the field of Information & Communications Technology and Electronics (ICTE). The Joint Declaration was signed by the Secretary, Department of Electronics and IT Shri RS Sharma, and the US Ambassador to India Shri Richard Verma, at a ceremony held in New Delhi this evening. Speaking to news persons, the Secretary, Department of Electronics and IT said that this is likely increase partnership for the ‘Digital India’ programme, electronic manufacturing, cyber security and several other such related fields between two countries. The US ambassador expressing happiness hoped that this declaration before the arrival of the US president on Sunday would further strengthen cooperation between industries of both the countries in the sector.  Shri Ram Sevak Sharma said that at the Indo US Joint working Group meeting on ICT held at Washington last week several US companies has expressed interest for their participation in India.  This Joint Declaration of intent made for a period of next five years would help in strengthening industrial, technological, research & innovation and economic cooperation between India and U.S. in the ICTE sector. It would also lead to US companies exploring opportunities for collaboration in India’s ambitious Digital India programme, Electronics manufacturing and Human Resource Development, through cooperation among private and public entities in a focused manner under the umbrella of the ongoing India-US ICT Dialogue. On this occasion, reference was made to the deliberations at India US ICT Working Group meeting held in Washington, D.C., during January 14-15, 2015. It was agreed at this meeting to continue to explore the opportunities for collaboration on implementing India`s ambitious Digital India initiative, with the goal of enhancing digital infrastructure, deploying e-governance and e-services, and expanding the diffusion and use of ICT as a tool to expand economic opportunities, boost productivity, create jobs, and empower citizens. Besides, broad agreement was also reached on the importance of policies that promote innovation in the ICT sector, facilitate the flow of data across borders, and foster the global and open nature of the Internet as a platform for economic growth.

Google hopes to take the web directly to billions lacking access

Google has never shied from novelty or spending big to find ways to connect more people to the internet. Over the last two years, its ideas have included fleets of little satellites, solar-powered drones that would fly around the world and balloons that float high into the stratosphere, beaming the internet to those below.

Building on that, Google and the mutual fund giant Fidelity announced a $1-billion investment on Tuesday into Space Exploration Technologies, a growing private rocket company that is still trying to prove itself on the world stage. The company, also known as SpaceX, could give Google a way to put its devices into outer space.

With that growing collection of devices in the sky, Google believes it can spread the internet to underserved areas around the world. The investments also reflect a bit of enlightened self-interest, since the more people who are connected directly to Google, the more ads it can show them. And that is how Google makes its money.

"Anything they provide, if it's going through their own pipe, they have more control over the experience and more potential for revenue," said J P Gownder, an analyst at Forrester Research. That means those consumers are more likely to stick with Google services like search, Gmail or YouTube rather than going somewhere else.

Google's interest in satellites is anything but original. Last week, the Virgin Group and Qualcomm, a maker of communications semiconductors, announced they had invested in OneWeb, a network of internet connectivity satellites, while Planet Labs, a maker of shoebox-size satellites that offer Earth imagery, announced Tuesday that it had received $95 million in financing.

Last year, Facebook bought a British drone maker and hired a bevy of top aerospace scientists, with the goal of deploying high-altitude, unmanned planes to deliver internet service to parts of the world that have little connectivity now.

These companies have different technologies and different ideas for making money, but the bind among them is a common assumption that there is no economic way to physically wire the world's underserved consumers. So the only way to do it is with satellites and other wireless technologies.

There is another benefit for Google: The company is always looking for ways to get around internet service providers. As Google executives have shown with new offerings, from insurance shopping to the growing Google Fiber broadband service, if there is one thing they believe, it is that their company's interests are best served by going directly to the consumer.

And as first reported on the tech website The Information, Google has been in talks with cellular network companies with a goal of providing its own wireless service, according to two people familiar with Google's efforts.

This idea of sky-high internet connections seems to be a fixture of technology booms. In the mid-1990s, there were similar efforts. One, called Sky Station, was a sort of stratospheric blimp that would hover over areas that needed broadband internet service. It was not successful, mostly because there was not much demand for the high-speed access it could provide, said Martine Rothblatt, inventor of the satellite service SiriusXM who was a Sky Station partner and is now chief executive of United Therapeutics, a biotechnology company.

The interest in satellites also extends to services. Last year, Google spent about $500 million to buy Skybox Imaging, a maker of small high-resolution imaging satellites that could do things like monitor crops or map the terrain below a forest canopy.

But be it imaging or connections, the recent interest in satellites stems from a reduction in satellite cost. Unlike the first space race, when governments had to make almost everything themselves, there are now all kinds of off-the-shelf chips, batteries and other components that can be mixed and matched. And just as the camera on your mobile phone becomes better with each upgrade, the advancement in space imaging technology has been rapid.

"Aerospace is following business because the dominant research and development dollars are no longer in the Air Force or NASA, but they are in Google and Apple and all these places pushing the boundaries of miniaturised electronics," said Will Marshall, co-founder and chief executive of Planet Labs.

There is nothing new about connecting to the internet via satellite. People do it on airplanes, at sea and in remote corners of the world. ViaSat, a Carlsbad, California, satellite company, beams satellite internet to 700,000 homes and apartments in the US. But this is done with bigger, higher-orbiting satellites that sit in a geosynchronous orbit, meaning that they move at the same speed as the earth and so stay above a fixed point.

Mark Dankberg, ViaSat chief executive, estimated that dozens of companies around the world are working on satellite-based internet services that are regional in scope and use these higher-orbit technologies.

But the satellites internet companies have become enamored with use lower orbits and can cover the world to put the three billion people who do not have internet access online.

Low-earth-orbit satellites are already revolutionising imaging technologies by allowing companies to receive continuously updated pictures of earth, which lets them do things like measure a mall's hourly parking lot traffic. But whether these satellites can be used to connect people to the internet more cheaply has yet to be proved, Dankberg said.

One advantage is that low-earth satellites could have less lag between typing a search into Google and receiving the results. But since most of the world is water and barren land, Dankberg said, a fleet of internet-connected satellites would have many of its components hovering over unpopulated areas.

"It has yet to be proven that lots of little satellites can provide internet more cheaply than a handful of big ones," he said.

Innovation on the right track

Many initiatives and announcements by Prime MinisterNarendra Modi emerged last year. Among his exhortations, a particularly inspiring and widely appealing one was the need for a clean and sanitary nation, Swachh Bharat. InInnoColumn, innovation and sanitation were featured even before Modi became Prime Minister ("'Neat and clean' innovation", April 18, 2014). It is fair to add that for decades before that column, outstanding scientists, politicians and social workers dwelt on the same theme. However, there is a magical diffusion of any message when a prime minister says it. The time has come finally for a concerted and synergistic drive on Swachh Bharat. Any multi-pronged solution requires a coalescing of administrative, scientific and social forces. India has a great opportunity now to focus and innovate in a domain where success can deliver huge side benefits.

In the recent weeks, newspapers have carried reports of the PM's exhortation on this subject at the Shashti Abda Poorthifunction of ICICI Bank. He wanted the bank (and other institutions) to help advance the cause. The Indian Railways, headed by the dynamic Suresh Prabhu, announced a reorganisation and refreshment of the Railway Board. TheRailways can play a key role in advancing the PM's campaign by carrying the message in an involving and emotional way all across the length and breadth of the nation - far more effectively than many other institutions. So this week's column is a call to Prabhu and the Railway Board Chairman A K Mittal to add grist to the mill ofSwachh Bharat. But how?

On behalf of the National Innovation Council (NInC), chaired by Sam Pitroda, I had made a formal slide presentation to the full Railway Board on March 7, 2014. The presentation was titled 'Aavishkar', and suggested as a joint initiative of the Railways, Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) and NInC. The board gave me an attentive hearing. In the context of the PM's call, the board may like to take the dust off the NInC presentation, make required updates and improvements, and explore how the Railways can advance the PM's programme. The Indian Railways is a symbol of inclusion and innovation in the country with multiple stakeholders. The Indian Railways transports over 9 billion people every year, almost 25 million each day. It employs 1.5 million people and its operation covers 24 states and three Union Territories.

Five steps (showcase-bubble up-shortlist-execute-reward) had been suggested in the NInC presentation: first, use of Indian Railways to showcase innovations with the goal to inspire, instigate and provoke stakeholders to contribute ideas. Second, to bubble up the ideas by implementing a system to acknowledge and capture the ideas. Third, to shortlist the innovation ideas; fourth, toexecute; fifth and last, to reward the innovations. For each of these five steps, detailed charts were presented to demonstrate details of how the programme can be devised and implemented.

One important element was to launch a CWS, Challenges Worth Solving. Public sanitation and open defecation could, for example, feature very legitimately in the CWS programme. To achieve any modicum of success, an information technology backbone would be required to capture and process the thousands of ideas. A 'Rail Innoverse' software was recommended to create a repository of all ideas and to enable ideas to flow swiftly in the value chain. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has anyway announced its contribution of Rs 100 crore to the PM's programme: TCS could well be the software partner to create and run 'Rail Innoverse'.

Envisioning and implementing such a railway innovation programme needs attitude training and skill impartation. On behalf of NInC, TISS said that they would be delighted to partner on such a programme. The NInC offered to join the Indian Railways in the funding of the programme. This would require an aggressive advertising and marketing programme. Creative roughs were presented and demonstration advertisements were also presented.

The NInC does not exist anymore. But the Indian Railways and TISS do. Can Prabhu and Mittal step up to the plate?

By the way, the same theme was presented separately to India Post. India Post, too, has a wide reach and huge capability. India Post could also lead. If India Post and Indian Railways lead, the nation has so much to gain. If they fail, they will fail the PM.

UTTARAKHAND PCS(UKPCS)-2012 MAINS in APRIL- MAY 2015.samveg ias

See the link.......................

http://ukpsc.gov.in/files/scan0001_58.pdf

'Beti Bachao Beti Padhao

सरकार ने बालिकाओं को बचाने और उन्‍हें सशक्‍त बनाने के लिए बेटी बचाओ, बेटी पढ़ाओ महत्‍वाकांक्षी अभियान शुरू किया।

The Government has launched ambitious 'Beti Bachao Beti Padhao' campaign to save and empower girl child.

इस अभियान से लोगों में देश में लड़कियों की कम होती संख्‍या के बारे में जागरूकता पैदा करना है।

The initiative will also help in spreading awareness about the declining trend of Child Sex Ratio in the country. 

Author Jhumpa Lahiri wins the USD 50,000 DSC Prize for 2015

Indian-American author Jhumpa Lahiriwon the USD 50,000 DSC Prize for Literature, one of South Asia's top literary awards for her book "The Lowland." The Prize celebrates writing on the SouthAsian region from writers across the globe and is given to the best novel or translations into English of a work on or about the region.

"This is an enormous honour for 'Lowland' and for me personally. I wish I was there in person to receive the award," Lahiri said through a phone conversation from Rome.
Publisher Caroline Newbury accepted the award on her behalf.

Lahiri trumped Indian author Shamsur Rahman Faruqi, who was nominated for his novel translated from Urdu besides Pakistani writer Kamila Shamsie, London-based Sri Lankan author Romesh Gunesekera and first-time novelist Bilal Tanweer from Pakistan.

The prize was given by Pulitzer Prize winning poet Vijay Shesadri at a ceremony at the ongoing Jaipur Literature Festival. The London-born daughter of immigrants from West Bengal said she had begun her award winning book 20 years ago.

"It was my first book but it ended up as the fourth one to be published," said the author adding "I published the book with some apprehension that I have not done justice to the events that transpired in the story."

"I heard about what was happening in Calcutta at that time and based on what I heard I was curious over the years and novel was result of the curiosity," she said. The fiction, which weaves a tale of two brothers set in Kolkata of the 1960s was nominated for the 2013 Man Booker Prize but did not win it.

Conferring the Prize, Shesadri said, "This seems to be an extraordinary grant for several reasons. Remarkable example of en-lighting philanthropy and recognizing South Asian writing.

It seeks to discern the dissemination of these writers, celebration of their books and ultimately the integrity of the South Asia." The event also saw organisers announcing that the DSC Prize won't be announced at JLF from next year and instead pick one South Asian country for the award ceremony. They also announced a termination of the Prize's association with the Jaipur LitFest. The Indian American writer Jhumpa Lahiri has won Asia’s richest literary prize for her novel The Lowland, which pivots around the Naxalite uprisings of the 1960s. The Pulitzer prize-winning novelist beat four other shortlisted writers to the $50,000 (£33,000) DSC award for south Asian fiction with a work that was described by chair of judges Keki N Daruwalla as “a superb novel written in restrained prose with moments of true lyricism” written “by a writer at the height of her powers”.