Thursday, April 3, 2014

Flavor of the moment

It gives me mixed feelings about India and its people in the run up to the latest elections. It makes me feel sad, happy, excited, afraid, ... all at the same time specially after observing the kind of behavior my friends are showing on Facebook. Even sitting miles away from India, I feel like I am in the middle of the battlefield with people already armed with their ideas so strong that they make the walls of the steel vaults of banks look like kitepaper. How informed/misinformed they are in making up such opinions is a completely another ball game.

I felt a bit left out after seeing many people online voicing their opinions to favor or against a particular political party. I wanted to throw in some of my thoughts as well but then felt like doing some research first. Amazingly, I found out that one of the basic things for elections is completely missing. No news website, blogger, tweeter, facebooker or even some political parties have released a complete list of their candidates online. Thus, there is no official source of candidates name for some political parties on their official websites. So, I thought that before I comment on anything, it is very important to first make a list of all constituencies and the different candidates contesting from them. It would give a better and clear picture of the upcoming elections. So, in the next few days, I will try to compile the list from whatever online sources I can get my hand on.

Some might argue that it is a futile attempt which does not solve anything. For me, it would be a learning exercise and might use that list as a betting game to predict who could win from where.

Wish me luck !!


4 comments:

The Gardener said...

The dance of democracy in India is worth watching.

The feat of Election Commission of India in conducting the election with such a large electorate in such a large country is watched by the whole world.

the.orchestra.of.life said...

That is true ! Given the cultural background of India, it is a tough feat to achieve.
I often wonder how easily people start commenting on the results without even trying to see the overall picture in which who is put up against whom.

Anonymous said...

Can't believe you took up such a tedious task! hats off to your dedication. I think this resource might help you https://www.google.co.in/elections/ed/in/districts

the.orchestra.of.life said...

Thanks for the link, Neha :) Google came up with it after I had already started compiling the data. But, they still do not have the complete info of all constituencies.
Actually, it was irritating to see news channels making so much noise but missing something very basic. So, to do the analysis myself and not to depend on mainstream media for their comments, I thought of doing some research myself :) Though not surprising but the end result made me ask some interesting questions to myself which I dont see any news channel asking the political parties. It was a good learning process.