Over a billion cuckoos cackle, cry and crap in India.
It is a nation where intelligence rules in closed quarters, idiocy in the open. Just like the open toilets under the benign gaze of Mother Nature"--"there are more cell phones than toilets in India, a survey reports. Oh! the average Indian retorts"--"and, then, goes on to do "business" as usual, sitting on the haunches, as sorry-assed as before"--"or sorts.
We are an indifferent, intelligently inclined idiocy"--"oops! democracy, We make gods out of mud, then, prostrating before them, we remain, as before, a dud. And, some times, in the name of our fancied little god and his glory, my motherland's favorite sons also kill each other, with the deep ingrained vigor of all our bestial ancestry, and like a whiff of wind are gone"--"dead.
Lest it becomes confusing, let's say it as it is"--"we Indians, like every other human being, are truly one really, really queer kin of apes. In some fields, ahead of others and beyond compare; in other areas, we are as silly and superstitious as a bull-hounded mare. In a nutshell, Indians, at least in the loftier mystical and evolved spiritual circles "get" some things well"--"like higher metaphysics"--"while failing miserably, simplistically, in simple, elementary physics.
After all, who in one's right mind would yet allow the use of absolutely antiquated, completely out-dated, easily hack-able and highly tamper-able "high school technology" based, obsolete EVMs (electronic voting machines) in national elections, even now"--"in 2014?
More than 80 democracies in the world have simply done away with them, dumping them in the trash, or simply declared the usage of this simplistic voting system susceptible to fraud, and hence declaring the same as illegal"--"as the Supreme Courts of Germany and Holland indeed have done. Even Japan, from where EVMs originated, has long abandoned its rogue babies, and is using paper ballot system since then. All the advanced democracies in the West, except the most dull-headed ones, have reverted to a voter verifiable system or the ballot paper. In Canada, even at the ,most basic school level, ballot paper voting is in use.
Last year, the Supreme Court of India, having been convinced of an undeniable, edible possibility of EVMs getting tampered with and that easily hacked"--"even from afar"--"had ordered the imbecilic Election Commission and the indolent Government of India to provide about 1600 crore (1600, 0000000) rupees"--"convert this into your respective currency!"--"for manufacturing these VVPAT (Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail) voting machines; which show a verifiable paper receipt to the voter.
This is the Fundamental Right of a Citizen of India, as per the laws laid down by the Constitution. However, as per recent newspaper reports, only 20, 000 such voting machines have been provided for the entire country in this, 2014 election! India has 29 states now"--"with Telagana being the latest. In most of them, depending upon their size etc., either about 400 VVPAT machines are being deployed, or some such similar ridiculous number"--"more or less"--"has been made available in the length and breadth of the country. It's an asinine, bland, cruel, demeaning joke we 1.25 billion jokers have been "blessed" with by the powers that be.
All "patriotic" hackers of our motherland are going to make hay in May!
As to how EVMs can be hacked into, tampered with, and results favorably manipulated via software interference and other means"--"from near and from far, far away"--"this can easily be found by anybody by just going to Google etc. and filling "EVM HACKING, TAMPERING" or something to this effect in the Search. And lo, behold! a plethora of information will just overwhelm your overly chilled-out, lesser employed, un-billed brains.
However, the only solace for us naive fools is that quite a few unscrupulous politicians and every other most "honorable" political party worthy of its "salt", would surely be playing this comic-tragic game of hacking into and hijacking the votes of a billion people! Thus, one who outsmarts the other such fine folks, armed with their hacking forks in this merry-go-around, will win.
The rest"--"this or that "tsunami" or wave in favor of one or the other, poll forecasts and the "newbie", the over enthused, seeming game changers in the making"--"well, they may well fall flat on their dumb faces, if not on their smart asses.
That the Supreme Court of India too, while passing the order of putting new VVAT voting machines in use in a "phased manner", has unwittingly shirked its duty. In fact, it committed a grave error of judgment. Perhaps dealt a fatal blow to Indian democracy. It should have ordered, as a caution, that till the time this newer set of about 1300ooo voting machines is manufactured in full and so deployed throughout India, ballot paper system would be brought in. No such precautionary measure was decreed by the apex court.
Well, crib all you want. But don't cry, my dear countrymen. After all, the same model of EVMs is yet very much in use in South Africa, Bangla Desh, Bhutan, Nepal, Nigeria, Venezuela etc. These poor folks of the said "non-techy" countries"--"millions of them"--"too cannot figure out as to what the hell had, yet is happening, in their dear short-circuited "developed" democracies. Nor will you.
Don't worry, be happy! You are not alone "out there".
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