Pune’s voter turn-out comes lower this election

I have been angered by the news that Pune has recorded the lowest percentage of voting this year, lowest ever in its history and that too after so many people, NGO's putting their efforts in informing the citizens about voting.
People fail to understand that voting is their right but also their responsibility.

I was writing the following comment on this news on one of the sites.

"The lowest voting percentage is not a good sign.
If we start to count then there could be several reasons for not wanting to vote but we have to rather find reasons to vote. If we are not voting then we have no right to crib about the condition of our city or our country.
I do not believe that there has been no change in pune or in our country, there has been progress for sure in some areas there is less progress and in some area more and some areas are completely ignored.
But then the areas where we have progressed in because of the votes that people have given to earlier governments.
Most of us are not interested in knowing more about the candidates or don't want to put efforts in improving the situation, we just want the situtation to improve on its own, which is not correct.
We have to get involved, we have to vote, we have to hope that our vote will bring the changes that is required.
Not voting is anyways not going to help us in anyway, why not try voting and hoping for the change to come rather then spending the election day as holiday in mahabaleshwar."

Wake up and Vote

It was 7 in the morning when i was riding my bike towards my swimming classes that I saw a man and a teenage girl standing at the "chauraaha" holding a placard which said "Wake up and Vote on the 23rd".
Pune goes for voting on 23rd April.
I had seen a few other big initiatives recently asking for the people to vote. One of them is from a very powerful industry group with the name "Jaago re". And also in every city there are a few socially active groups which launch a campaign to make the citizens aware about their voting rights.

But what caught my eye was this single man effort. He had no other banner behind him proclaiming the organization that is behind that effort, he had no other means of making noise about his efforts. A simple placard which was making people remember about their right to vote.

The noticeable thing was the man's daring to do take this effort alone and belief that he can bring a change with his efforts. We all talk in our lives so much about so many things but how many of us dare to do something about things we really feel about?
We are always waiting for someone to start and at best we can join their efforts but we don't have the courage or conviction to stand alone for what we believe in.

It felt so good looking at one man who did. In every walk of our lives we will time and again meet such people who stand alone for what they believe in and instead of just talking they are trying to do something (for whatever reasons).

And the truth of the matter is that even one person can change the world. Probably we should also try to become one such person.

Rescue the Olive Ridleys from Tata's Dhamra port

Youth in Politics

As the election season is back once again the slogans of youth and politics are surfacing again.

Many people (specially the cosmopolitans) agree with the thought that more and more youth should join the politics.
And if youths join the politics then it will change the face of India. The experienced (older as they are called by aam janta) politicians are way too corrupt and can't bring a change in the country and will always be busy in filling up their pockets or will be involved in corruption.

But I don't fully agree with this school of thought. More youths should join the politics I agree with this thought but if we are expecting a dramatic change in the country, or expecting quick and easy solution to all our national and local issues as a result of more youths joining the politics then I think we are just fooling ourselves.

Come to think of it, now we do see more young faces in politics, lets name a few (due to election season it's easy to remember names for good or bad reasons) Rahul Gandhi, Varun Gandhi, Sachin Pilot, Omar Abdullah, Supriya Sule and a few more.
The similarities between all of these?
Their parents are already high profile politicians. Sonia Gandhi, Maneka Gandhi, Late Rajesh Pilot, Farooq Abdullah, Sharad Pawar respectively.

Even when I think hard I don't seem to remember a young politician who doesn't have a political background or is not already a celebrity. I am sure there will be a few who will be on the national political scene on their merit and not because of their family lineage or their celebrity status but then their number would be very less.

Now the question is if the young politicians are coming from an already established school of thought or ideologies (or in some cases of actors no ideologies and no sense of politics at all) then what change and how big a change are we expecting from them?

Let me say this that I am not saying here that these young politicians are any wrong or the ideologies they are following are wrong but then I would also say that the parties they belong or the other politicians that belong to those parties or follow that ideology might not be wrong too, irrespective of their ages and experiences.

Just to clear off my above point for example if I am not happy with the ideology of BJP or I am not happy with the existing netas of that party or their policies and I think that a new neta in that party someone like Varun Gandhi can bring a dramatic change then I am fooling myself.

Varun will follow BJP's ideology and will be closely associated with its policies and stand by its decisions and same applies to Rahul with Congress or Supriya Sule with NCP.

Had it been that more and more youngsters are joining the politics forming their own parties, with their separate agendas, a new ideology, separate or better policies then yes may be the face of the nation would change much faster.

But with the way the youths are joining politics today I am as optimistic about any change coming in the society as I am optimistic about a politicians wife fighting election (when her husband can't fight for some legal reasons and fields her instead) and doing things differently then her husband.

The need of the hour is not only youths joining the politics but youths of the country pressurising the political parties to make amendments to their policies and their agendas, forcing them to change their age old ideologies if time has proven them wrong.

So if the youth of the country can force the political parties not to field candidates of criminal background, spend less on elections, form better policies then Rs 2 kg rice, remove candidates who threaten people or spread communal violence, to focus on progress issues rather than focusing on film actors then that will be the real change and that will change the face of the nation in no time.

Because in the end the experienced politicians also were young politicians sometime, they also had the zeal to change the nation for better and to work for the needy but the flaws in the system and majboori of hanging in their places might have driven them towards corruption. And the same could happen to the so called young politicians of today, ten years down the line.

So the debate is not about young or old neta but about a saccha neta and a jhoota neta.