Ensure free and fair polls
The manner in which elections are held has drastically changed over the years. Many of the measures taken are in the right direction but much more needs to be done to ensure free and fair polls with a level playing field to all candidates in the fray.
The Election Commission officials have failed to curb the distribution of cash and other freebies. Something drastic would have to be done to curb this menace of money and muscle power which has been overshadowing the conduct of elections at all levels.
Elections will be meaningful only if the Election Commission is truly independent and not susceptible to the pulls and pressures of the ruling party.
The Election Commission spends a lot of money on various programmes including the ones organized to motivate people to vote. A lot of expenditure incurred is unnecessary and wasteful.
At least at the Assembly level the Election Commission should contemplate officially organizing a public debate in each constituency conducted by an independent moderator where the candidates could publicly articulate their views and plans while the voters could seek replies to their queries. This exercise may be too late to organize for these Elections but could be planned from the 2027 Assembly elections.
Aires Rodrigues, Ribandar
Need for uniting of the opposition
There is witnessed a consistent trend of the aspirants’ shifting their loyalties from one political party to another so quickly, that it has become virtually impossible to identify, as to which Party one is affiliated to, at a given point of time.
Much was talked and discussed on the issue of defeating the BJP by way of forming unity under one platform and with a single vision ‘unite to uproot the party with the communal mindset’.
However, there is hardly any progress on this front, with the effect that each Party is concerned with its own different agenda to meet that is different from the common goal of elimination of the party with a difference.
However, there is still time to act swiftly in the direction of the common goal and mend the loose ends in the interest of the larger national objective.
Anil N. Laad, Panjim
Digital hoo haa
It appears as if the Union finance minister took the idea of a paperless budget so literally that she has attempted to find digital solutions to most of the country’s problems. The ‘ Amrit Kaal’ (whatever that means) of the next 25 years seems to be laden with a multitude of digital innovations that will be a panacea for poverty, rising prices, unemployment, farmer’s woes, inflation etc. etc. Education will be provided through TV channels
(propaganda actually) , digital teachers and digital universities; farmers shall use Kisan drones to arrive at cropping decisions and the youth will seek to earn their livelihoods by providing DAAS (‘Drone as a service’) . Access to finance will be through digital banking, digital assets, digital rupee and there shall be a digital health ecosystem for providing treatment; digital utopia coming our way , we shall soon become the promised land. The budget speech didn’t have any mention of social inequality/ inequity or social injustice which impacts the economy and well-being of a nation. Catchphrases and digital everything fantasies will only ensure an imaginary La La Land, not a developed nation.
Rekha Sarin, Benaulim
Budget 2022 has no visions
The pandemic has made life difficult for commoners but providing any relief is not on the government’s agenda. The rich stands to gain more. That the government introduced no relief measures for the middle class, salaried and poor. India’s salaried class and middle class were hoping for relief in times of pandemic, all round pay cuts and back breaking inflation. The measures taken by the government in the Budget for the welfare of the farm sector and agriculture sector is nil. The employees and the trading community were looking forward to a change in the income tax slabs. With coronavirus in the backdrop, no efforts were put into developing the medical and health sector in the country. It is surprising that the central government is not bothered about public health.
The whole Budget speech by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is full of hollowness, visionless and directionless. This whole Budget is nothing for common people, who are getting crushed by unemployment, price rise and inflation.
People had high expectations from the budget. But it has become anti-people budget and a Golmal Budget.
K.G. Vilop, Chorao
Covid hits Indian cricket team
Following an outbreak of Covid-19 in the U-19 Indian cricket team playing at the Junior World Cup in the Caribbean, the virus has come back to haunt the senior squad.
Three players – opener Shikhar Dhawan, reserve opener Ruturaj Gaikwad and middle-order batter Shreyas Iyer – tested positive for the virus along with at least three support staff during their mandatory isolation period before the start of the West Indies series. As a result, the trio will miss the series because of the strict COVID-19 protocols.
Karnataka opener Mayank Agarwal was called in as reinforcement, and one expects that the stand byes including Shahrukh Khan, R Sai Kishore and Rishi Dhawan, get a look-in.
N J Ravi Chander, Bengaluru
DDSY card renewals and Covid treatment
I thank the government for the timely renewal of the DDSY medical cards. A bird in hand is better than two in the bush as is being offered by various parties. Offering of freebies including direct income amounts to financial inducement. I also thank the government for keeping the Covid treatment centre’s in Hospitals free of charge. This befitted numerous patients.
Various candidates are found to be leaving smaller parties and joining the ruling dispensation. This is because smaller parties can at best offer snacks or starters. Candidates are bound to sooner or later feel suffocated or starved in such parties. It is only larger parties with presence at the Centre who can offer a main course.
Previous regimes in Goa were unable to secure funding for Goa although they had their own party at the Centre. Their party was against partying in Goa. It was this anti-party mindset that cost us dearly.
Vinay Rodrigues, Margao
No relief for salaried class
It is really unfortunate that the Budget 2022-23 doesn’t contain anything for the salaried middle class which is a vital cog in the country’s wheel of economic development.
As the budget was coming after the disastrous Covid second wave, and amidst the on-going third wave, the salaried class, who are under severe pandemic pain, were earnestly looking for some ‘painkiller’ from the FM Nirmala Sitharaman’s prescription. But disappointingly enough, the absence of any prescription from the economic doctor has only added to their suffering.
Individual tax-payers who contribute almost 40% of direct revenues, had been expecting some tax relief to equilibrize the economic damage caused by the pandemic. But sadly they are let down.
Meanwhile, the Finance Minister’s remark, ‘not increasing the tax would be a relief in itself’ is impudent and sounds brash, and her mere ‘apology’ cannot mollify the anger and displeasure of the tax-payers. No wonder, several quirky memes have made their way on the internet regarding the ‘middle-class’ theme with a filmy twist to them.
Ranganathan Sivakumar, Chennai
