Documenting 21st Century - India and the World

There are anti EVM activists who want abolishing of EVMs and having elections by Ballot paper. I agree with these anti EVM activists on certain things. 1. I believe that EVM hacking can happen, EVMs can be manipulated & tampering is possible. I do not believe Govt & election commission on their claim that EVM are full proof from all manipulation. 2. I believe that we need to ban digital elections for sake of transparency & accountability. I agree with Germany's Supreme Court order on banning electronic voting machines which takes into account the fundamental flaw in elections through electronic machines. 3. I do not have a concrete evidence of manipulation of EVM but i have suspicions & anecdotal evidence that EVM manipulation has happened ( UP 2017 & Lok Sabha 2019 are two interesting cases). I also believe that EC is not being transparent about many issues related to EVMs. But i have certain disagreements with Anti EVM activists.  Many anti EVM...

I have followed case of Donald Trump since 2015 & realized the importance of analyzing personality traits in Political leaders. Trump's mental health is subject of much debate in America because of his unstable behavior, his rage & anger, his insane & unsound policies, narcissistic tendencies & many other things. There is a book by a forensic psychiatrist Dr Bandy Lee on personality of Trump title - The Dangerous case of Donald Trump. The book is co-authored by 27 psychiatrists & psychologists assessing Trump's mental health. I strongly believe that we need a similar study on personality of Modi who is highly unstable & dangerous Prime Minister of India. Maybe some experts in field of psychology & psychiatry can come forward to share their views about Modi & his style of governance. But here i am discussing some of the possible issues with Modi's personality & how it fits into concept of Dark Triad .  Photo - Gerlando Lima ...

Why our Police & Courts are underfunded & understaffed? Why Govt does not strengthen law enforcement institutions to effectively serve the people? Why Govt has clogged up our legal & justice system? Why institutions of accountability and Transparency (like CIC etc) are all clogged up & in very poor condition? Why Police & law enforcement agencies have massive corruption? Why these agencies are full of some of the most corrupt people? Answers to all these questions are connected. Some observations before we get to answers to these questions. In article about Indian economy, i mentioned how Police departments in India have acute shortage of personnel, how Courts & legal system has acute shortage of Judicial officers & Courthouses, basically all critical law enforcement & Judicial bodies are understaffed, underfunded & clogged with huge workload. Similarly institutions like Central Information commission CIC have been working in dire condition...

Trump's impeachment trial has finally come to a closure with his acquittal in Senate. The trial was reduced to a partisanship exercise from the beginning as it was pretty clear that Mitch McConnell was preparing for an acquittal from the start and he was not interested in an actual trial with witnesses & disclosure of classified documents. What Democrats did not not accomplish from Trial? Removal of Trump from office by a formal 2/3rd majority in Senate. This goal was almost impossible to achieve as most Republican Senators were unlikely to sway towards Democrats impeachment motion. Forcing Trump to resign by breaking away 4-5 Republican senators to join with Democrats impeachment motion. If few GOP senators had joined Democrats, it would have created a crisis for Trump and he might have resigned to save face even before a final formal vote on impeachment. I think McConnell used his party whip strength and all his power to keep GOP senators in control. Democrats could no...

India is going through a major economic slowdown these days. Somethings looks pretty clear - Collapse of Demand. Fall in private sector investment. Stress in Banking system specially regarding NPAs & Bank frauds. Distress in various sectors of economy - Telecom, Power, Agriculture, Textiles, MSMEs, Infrastructure, Real Estate etc. But despite economy in such a bad shape, our Govt appears to be in complete paralysis. It looks like they have no clue on what to do. Their policy is HOPE. Hopefully private sector will take Bold business decisions (as Modi keeps asking them to do so) and private investment will rise. Hopefully Private sector will create jobs and improve our job situation. Hopefully banking system problems will resolve on their own. But hope cannot be a substitution of policy. There is a lot of pessimism from side of Neoliberal experts including the IMF who are guiding Modi Govt. They are preaching TINA doctrine (there is no alternative) to Govt. IMF talks about constr...