Should NRIs get voting rights?
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh seems to have set the ball rolling for granting voting rights to Non Resident Indians.
“I recognise the legitimate desire of Indians living abroad to exercise their franchise and to have a say in who governs India,” Singh said at the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas meet in New Delhi.
According to reports, the law ministry is working on amending the Representation of the People Act to include those living overseas as citizens.
While seeking the active involvement of NRIs with their home country is the aim of this move, yet for many, the very fact that they left the country to seek life elsewhere doesn’t seem to shore up their right to vote.
Is it fair to people who are living in the country itself?
It can be said that people who are residents have the maximum stake in who should rule the country. Seeking a green card is the dream of many a middle-class Indian living abroad but should that be coupled with voting rights as well?
Moreover, it is not clear whether giving voting rights to NRIs will make them more involved with politics and other issues at home, as the PM intends.
Bangalore: Teething troubles on path to globalisation
It has been a rather uneasy transition for Bangalore from “pensioner’s paradise” or “garden city” to the information technology capital of India.
Longtime residents often complain of immigrants from other parts of the country ruining their paradise. Such complaints have been common in Mumbai, which has witnessed waves of immigration since the 1950s, but Bangalore old-timers tend to blame the city’s problems on the “IT fellows”.
It’s fair to say the city’s infrastructure hasn’t kept pace with the growing population. Traffic jams, as everywhere in the world, are incredibly annoying and travelling in Bangalore makes one wonder what exactly inspired Thomas Friedman to sing praises of this city in “The World is Flat”.
The much-maligned metro rail project is blamed for turning the city into an ugly mess. Gone are many of the broad tree-lined avenues and pretty neighbourhoods that gave the city a small town feel.
But isn’t the very existence of a metro system going to help people avoid the traffic in the future? Residents of Bangkok used to complain about the construction work on the sky rail and the elevated roads. Now, the toll roads and the sky rail are the pride and joy of Thailand’s capital.
In its zeal to become a global city, Bangalore should look eastwards. Kuala Lumpur, for example, has changed beyond recognition in the last ten years. This was a city which had a major problem with cockroaches before its makeover.
Nobody has benefited more from the arrival of immigrants than the locals. Local landlords are getting fatter and richer charging super-high rents.Local auto rickshaw drivers make a killing on those who don’t speak Kannada and local officials get lakhs from kickbacks.Local youth get more money working for IT companies than they ever would have for locally run businesses.The real problem is that locals don’t want to see others making money and living well. I see a bit of MNS in the locals that have posted comments here.Wake Up! India is ONE country.
Are we ready for genetically modified vegetables?
You may soon find India’s first genetically modified vegetable, Bt brinjal, making its way to your vegetable market.
The Genetic Engineering Approval Committee, which is responsible for approval of proposals relating to release of genetically engineered products, on Wednesday approved the environmental release of the vegetable but it still has to get a nod from the central government.
Many in India are concerned over the harmful effects of the vegetable and question the need for a genetically modified vegetable.
“Bt brinjal should not be launched in the country as the Bt toxin gene produces poison and when it can harm pests, where’s the proof that it won’t be harmful to humans?” says Suman Sahia, Convener of Gene Campaign.
A report by Debi Barker, Executive Director of the International Forum on Globalization, says that genetically modified crops can spread in the environment and contaminate other crops and plants.
Concerns over their effect on wildlife and human health have been expressed all over the globe.
Food policy analyst Devinder Sharma raises a few important questions — “First of all, do we even need Bt brinjal? Why take a risk? Where is the crisis in brinjal production that necessitates it?”
This type of infidelity among general public about Bt Brinjal is due to lack of basic understanding about plant breeding techniques. We require such genetically modified varieties for another green revolution to come. Human beings would not have existed but for genetic variations. You can not discard something out of suspicion. For producing higher food productivity to feed the growing millions, we need to believe our scientists.If you do not believe them, you have no right to produce more babies and add to the 1.2 billion population of the country.
Do India and U.S. have more in common than they think?
First impressions count. That’s true no less with airports, the gateway to a globalised world for any country.
Which is why the United States and India may have more in common than they like to think.
I have been one of those thousands that have spent three hours in Delhi International Airport making it from check-in though to the boarding gate. Which is why I read with interest the recent spat between deputy planning chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia and civil aviation minister Praful Patel over who is responsible for the chaos.
But this kind of controversy is not just confined to India. I read this piece in May from Thomas L. Friedman, the author who coined “The World is Flat”. The full article is here. But have a look at this paragraph.
“A few weeks ago, my wife and I flew from New York’s Kennedy Airport to Singapore. In J.F.K.’s waiting lounge we could barely find a place to sit. Eighteen hours later, we landed at Singapore’s ultramodern airport, with free Internet portals and children’s play zones throughout. We felt, as we have before, like we had just flown from the Flintstones to the Jetsons. If all Americans could compare Berlin’s luxurious central train station today with the grimy, decrepit Penn Station in New York City, they would swear we were the ones who lost World War II.”
Having lived in Washington DC before moving to India, I can sympathise with Mr. Friedman. Some of the worst queues outside India, I have seen at airports was at Dulles and JFK airports.
Are India and the United States two sides of the same coin?
Even though I am based in the US, I am a frequent traveler to Europe/Asia/South America. I completely agree with Tom Friedman that arriving into an American Airport today is like coming to a 3rd world country – long lines, confrontational immigration agents, arbitrary rules, decrepit infrastructure, everyone is a terrorist unless proven otherwise…
The author of this article is merely ignorant of the terms that he ought to have used in his article’s title.
An NRI is a “Non-Resident Indian” — she is an Indian who is, for whatever reasons, living outside the borders of India for a prolonged period of time. The contention for voting rights is not for NRIs whose voting rights was never revoked. In fact, if an NRI so wishes, he may go to the nearest Indian consulate or embassy and cast his vote.
The question is that of OCIs — Overseas Citizens of India. An OCI is one who has renunciated Indian citizenship and has become the citizen of a different country. For all practical purposes an OCI card grants it’s holder all rights that a citizen has, except that he may not vote, or buy plantation or agricultural land. To be candid, while the OCI card does mention that she may not buy plantations or agricultural land, it makes no mention as to the the individual’s voting rights — it is almost implied.