In his Gettysburg Address,
Abraham Lincoln called democracy “government of the people, by the people and for the people.”
And now is the time for the "people" to play their important role in the world's largest democracy to decide their representatives and now is the time to decide on how we want to be governed for next five years.
So are we participating in this sacred act? most of us (read it as educated professionals) are not even bothered, we find all reasons to escape this. But we stand first in complaining about all possible things ranging from improper roads, facilities until participating in candle light vigils for Mumbai terror attack victims. Why don't we consider this as a duty to perform. First comment that we hear from a person who does not vote - "arrey yaar my vote does not count among this huge number of voters". One needs to understand by exercising their vote, neither the country, nor the contestant, nor even the constituency will be benefited, Its U and only U will get the prize. The prize of a good governance, the prize of a development, the prize of a better utilization of the taxes that you pay.
In a view to spread the awareness in this regards, like minded people from my office have organized a campaign "Walk to Work", wherein we walked all the way from KBR National park in Banjara hills to Qualcomm office in Mindpspace - a distance of about 7 Km.
Five of us assembled at sharp 7 AM on April 15th, 2009 at the entrance of KBR park. The park is already full with morning joggers. We saw some other group also campaigning for the same cause and a gentleman from that group inquired about us looking at the charts with the slogans that we were carrying. He was very much thrilled with the effort that we were carrying out.
We had a great support from all the passers by on the road, there was instance where a lady stopped her car and took one of our posters. She said she was going to put it on the back of her car. Few school kids waiting for their school bus asked us what the telugu slogan meant!
Slowly, we were being joined by many of our colleagues. By the time we reached Cyber Towers, a total of 25 of our colleagues stood there holding up our banners for about 10 minutes, and then continued our walk to the office. It was around 9.30 Am by time we reached our office.
We stopped at all important junctions, and the fact that traffic was moving slow at these junctions when we stopped was satisfying! In few instances, when we were holding up the charts, I saw few people just showing their expression - "Yes, We should Vote". Some places people expressed their support by holding their "thumbs-up". It is not just the participation that was extremely commendable, but also the fact that passers by constantly encouraged us all along the route was evidence enough of the desire of many people to participate in election.
Just voting might not be the end all of our social obligation, but it sure is a responsibility that we have to carry out.
Be Responsible! Cast Your Vote!
Few Pictures from our campaign
15 comments:
Dude,
good to hear that you are championing a very good cause. however if you feel nobody is worth getting elected, whom do you want people to vote for. It is sad for me to point out but how many contestants are worth voting for?
Hi Kiran!
Very impressive efforts for a good cause. Commendable indeed! Looks like you have found like-minded company at Hyd. :) Could see your enthu and that of the onlookers' through your words.
And finally, your blog is out! Nice background colour :) Looking forward to more posts!
Really good one .Definitely awakes few professionals around you .looking forward to see more activities from you.
Hey Krian!
You once again proved that u will be there in front for any good cause. May god bless you with lot of energy and support you in activities like this. Have fun....
dei bawa!!
cool blog da...
keep blogging..
rgds,
david
hai kiran,
its a very impressive bolg,hey as it was for a very good cause.
the collection ofpics is damm good,nice background :)
commendable effort to promote such a cause dude.
Of course we guys should stop complaining and start doing our part(however small it might be).
And indeed a nice blog to start with.
anoop T
@Anonymous: Good that you have a feel about the importance of voting. As per the 1969 act, in section "49-O" that a person can go to the polling Booth, confirm his identity, get his finger marked and convey the Presiding election officer that he doesn't want to vote anyone!
@Meenakshi: Thanks a lot :) and yes i found like-minded ppl here in hyd.
Hopefully i will keep posting
@Unity in Unity: thank you :-)
The sad part is, i dont know how far different campaigns awakened professionals. We just saw a mere 54% voting, an increase of 4% from previous time.
Nevertheless, we will still have similar activities to empower our professionals
@Gokul Venati: Thanks a lot for the wishes
@David: Thanks da
@Maitreyie: Thanks much
@Anoop:Thanks and good that you recognized that we all are also part of the society and we do have a role to play.
@Kiran : Rule 49-0 is a worthless provision. Nobody actually uses it. If u dont believe me, ask for it using an RTI form and check it out. Believe me.
BTW who are you voting for?
@Anonymous : you are right, 18% of our parliamentary candidates have pending criminal cases. Ours is a tainted Democracy. People like Kalam didn't even get a second term in the presidency.
Machi, very good machi. Muyarchi thiruvinai-yaakum. My wishes and support.
But sadly I myself will not vote this time(last state assembly also I didnt vote(so 2 of 3 times I didnt vote) :-(
Machi any plans of Politics ?
@Madan: yeah i accept nobody is using it, but still its our responsibility to spread the news about the act and its availability and about my vote i haven't cast my vote yet, i am gonna do it on 23rd april.
@Rajesh: thanks, i think you have to explore the option of postal vote for non-residents, i am sorry i dont have info about that.
thinking of it, whether to serve being in politics or outside politics
Postal vote for non-residents? I have to admit that I didn't know about that! You sure do seem to have a solution to every problem/excuse with voting!
@Kiran: Machi I enquired with some ppl here(Delhi) who are in Election Duty; Postal ballot is offered only for people who are under election duty. It is not for common people. Considering this mass I logically think that it is difficult to implement Postal ballot for the mass.
@Meenakshi: What to do, we dont haev any other excuse for this time. For Voting I cant spend Rs.5000. That too for voting 49-O. :-)
@Madan , @ Kiran and et al: First of all my apologies for not replying back soon as i was away. Kiran, thanks for bringing this interesting but not so worthy 49-0 out. Yes I understand it but is it that really a big weapon to force political parties to nominate worthy candidates in elections? In its current state i don't think so.
The rule itself is self defeating for two reasons: It just gives you an opportunity to say that you do not want to vote but does not give you an opportunity to express because of what reason you are abstaining from voting. And also at present no one even keeps track of people who are invoking it and no aftermath actions basing on it. However there are few online petitions that are asking for an amendment. (like http://www.petitiononline.com/India49O/petition.html). And moreover how many are aware of it???
My issue with non voting is not only because of corrupt politicians but also of the fact that i even do not know what the creds of candidtate is, who really he is and what he stands for. I firmly believe our campaigning structure is so screwed up it never really gives gives an opportunity for people to know what priniciples the parties are standing for and also the parties would never project actual contesting candidate and why the people in that constituency should vote for him. Neither regional issues nor the national issues are discussed by any of the parties nor their stand nor the candidate's stand on those issues. What i am trying to express is in addition to how corrupt/non-functional these parties are on ont keeping their promises. The actual promises they made are just alluring to some sections of people but not exactly that they openly talk abt pressing issues and their stand on them nor they make an effort to project a candidate regionally enough and nor the candidate comes openly on his opinions/principles except the filmi talk we are used to from the top brass again and again. Just my opinion!!!!!!
It's time we "Rediscover India".First of all my sincere applauds to kiran for his petty though much needed efforts.I wish u make stride towards making efforts that move masses and play ur part in rediscovering the lost glory of the greatest nation on earth.
Hello all who took some time to go thro this blog and the ones who will go thro in the days ahead. Very happy to c u all willing to vote. At this juncture, I am happy to inform you all that a Wind of "Change" is blowing in the state of AP and I am very optimistic that it will spread all over the country in the next fifteen to twenty years. Thanks to the new political party in the state. The voting percentae around 70-75 percentage in one of the biggest states of India voices out the fact that we are on the verge of rediscovering our glory which we had for most of the time in around 6000 plus years long history.
At this juncture I believe, the youth, which consist of 70 percent of population and the ones wo are shying away from politics realise the following things.Whether we like or not politics effects our life. The air we breathe, the water we drink,the food we eat, the house we live in, the roads we travel on, the companies we work in, to note a few, are all determined by politics. Let me elaborate on the above, it is the result of the political decission that was taken in early 90's to open up FDI's to India that made all of us not to remain as qualified unemployed youth and today when the world is in recession we are again worried not to be in that list of people who r fired from the companies. Another political decission seems to be warrant at this time, to make countrie's economy independent of foreign economies which is absolutely feasible considering the huge domestic demand we have.For all those who r working and feel politics is not for them, beware ur jobs are all decided by the way the polity is governing the country. Hope u can try to justify by urselves now, that politics is playing a role unknowingly or knowingly in all walks of our life. It is for this reason that we need to participate in making our politics better, rather than eternally complaining and which does no good to us. Another appeal to all of u is, please dont get disgusted thinking that ours is a tainted democracy. 200 yrs ago US and France before their revolutions were not the way they are today.We always think of corruption in our country and say western countries r clean. In my opinion there could not be worse cooruption than govt getting lobbyed and making worse economic decissions that lead to recission. It took them more than two centuries for all these countres to become what they are today. Another important point to note is, all these first world countries are not democratic in terms of giving rights to citizens right from day one since they became independant, unlike us which obviously makes things a little difficult for us. For example, almost all of the first world countries did not give voting rights to women for more than a century after they claied to be democratic. So dont ever be of the impression we r failed democracy. It is the citizens of the nation that makes the nation great not the natin itself. Let's move forward to make our nation great and make it eternally glorious.
Post a Comment