EVM voting & ECI processes - program, data and counting - current vulnerabilities, remedies and action required by INDIA

 

Synopsis: It is said in a Democracy people get the Government they deserve; but what if the Election System - the machines or the processes - are deficient? Then the Government ought to fix it or else the people should agitate to fix the deficiencies. Recent disclosures - as documented by independent journalists and pointed out by activists - show the Electronic Voting Machines (EVM), voting and counting processes in use in India can be manipulated (are hackable). Denying audit challenges is not consistent with democratic norms nor the Constitution of India. The Government, Election Commission of India (ECI) and Courts should accept the citizens' right to know and even provide the means to the contestants to make feasible verifications and allow them to mount audit challenges. The authorities should publish a fair process to allow and resolve contestants' audit challenges. What can be the means and processes for enabling audit challenge which will deter frauds that thwart our democracy?   

In the context of Electronic Voting Machines (EVM), how democracy is subverted, or can be subverted, is a question much debated. Concerned citizens have been agitating in India and have met with only limited success - especially now, since all pillars of the Indian democracy seem to be failing in unison.

Election Commission of India (ECI) is a constitutional body supposedly independent of the GOI. However, in reality, a whole lot of processes related with the use of Electronic Voting Machines reveal that GOI is in charge where ECI ought to be in charge. Under the bogey of secrecy for reasons of national security or abdication of judiciary to rule in its domain by calling it the domain of the executive, the democratic processes have been imperiled and even subverted.

People who have little understanding of Information Technology and Digital Security are in charge of designing policies and processes and even SCI has ruled in a way to curtail citizens rights to access programs that ought to be "open source" under the garb of "sensitive", "Intellectual Property" and "Executive Domain". After observing strange coincidences (statistical improbabilities), unexpected electoral results (outside the forecast of all pollsters) and documented anomalies (see articles below in RELATED section), this note references the on-going agitations for fair elections and prescribes what ought to be additional and very important concerns of Indian citizens and actions required for deterring electoral frauds in the future.

PETITION FILED TO ECI to conduct FREE AND FAIR ELECTIONS - Citizens campaign, started a few months ago, by concerned citizens - Petition started on 24-Aug-23 by Prof. MG Devasahayam

ADR's recommendations for Electoral Reforms, Political Reforms and Rules for ECI: PDF file from ADRINDIA.org

The above petition and recommendations miss out some of the important issues arising from the points raised in the article of 10-Nov-23 in The Wire by Meetu Jain.

Most importantly, there are three points of hacking that need to be safeguarded against for preventing subversion of the voting and counting process -

i) EVM program hack,

ii) EVM results hack and

iii) results counting by ECI hack.

>>INDIA parties should ask for the following five things in the petitions to ECI and SCI; these steps for transparency are meant to deter voting frauds without forcing withdrawal of EVM or change in any methodology ECI follows in their deployment:

1) Source code of EVM must be shared with public - (this will have to go into a review petition as SCI has already ruled against revealing the source code even to ECI for audit),

2) "Audit Challenge" to discover fraud through any EVM must be resolved through a published process that should include comparing source code of suspect EVM with master copy - can be done by Political Parties/independent auditor,

3) At the Start of voting and after close of voting, the program AND results from each EVM should be allowed to be saved in an external storage by each contestant party for fulfilling the option of an "audit challenge" - each record in the votes cast data file will contain EVM ID, date time stamp, ID of candidate voted for; voter id is not available (so secret ballot is honoured - no one can find out who voted for whom); if there is an "audit challenge" then ECI's database from which results were announced will have to be compared with records saved in external devices submitted by the challenger political party/parties; If ECI aggregates the results filed (entered online manually) by the ECI's Returning Officer (RO) at each constituency, then the audit challenge will involve comparison of the EVM wise Candidate wise counts filed by the RO i.e. the figures from each of the EVMs the RO took into account (see the ECI's counting process note here: link). It should be noted that the data copied from memory stick has only the candidate ID and NOT the name of the candidate; as ECI does not want the results to be known until all voting is completed, in multi-phase and bunched multi-State elections, the password to the list of Candidate ID + Names will be released by the ECI when it wants - i.e. after voting is over; the encrypted list of Candidate names & their IDs will be downloadable from ECI portal by authorized Party representatives and Independent candidates right at start of elections.

4) ECI must have control over randomized distribution of EVMs at State and Constituency levels,

 

5) Sample checking at random of 5% to 30% should always be done of results counted through EVMs and manually of VVPATs.

[For meeting the requirements in point# 2 (detection of program hack) & 3 (detection of "data of EVM results" AND "results transmission & counting by ECI" hacks) EVM could provide a removable memory stick (flash memory card) which can easily hold the copy of the program AND results stored in the internal memory of EVM. Memory sticks have capacities ranging from 1 GB to 1 TB and more. EVM will have to be provided two buttons - "Start" and "End" - when these buttons are pressed, BOTH - the program and results data will be copied into the memory stick - further, only after the Start button is pressed, voting can commence and after the End button is pressed, voting will cease - i.e. the EVM will not be usable for any further voting until it is initialised for next round of election through the existing ECI processes. Using the removable memory stick, the ECI's booth officer and contestants' representatives will be allowed to copy the program + data into their own phones or computers - twice - at the time of Start event and also at the End event]

If these requests (#1 to #4) are denied, all Opposition parties should resist the use of EVMs henceforth and INDIA parties could use Point#5 - for negotiating 100% of VVPAT counting AND for the printed slip to be physically picked up by the voter and for the voter to push it into the box of votes for counting - ONLY the physical count would be treated as the final result - not the EVM memory results (in case they differ). See the hack video in the Notes below on Challenges to EVM and reaction of authorities (presently 5% VVPAT vs EVM counting comparison per constituency has been allowed - this is pointless in view of the hack of EVM + VVPAT actually demonstrated).

Reference: EVMs and VVPATs - purpose and ruling by SCI

10-Nov-23 The Wire Article by Meetu Jain - What we know and don't know about EVMs Link

Most disconcerting facts and revelations uncovered by the staff of The Wire and reported in the article (verbatim extracts):

(1) In September, the Supreme Court refused to entertain a public interest litigation that asked for an audit of the source code of the Election Commission’s electronic voting machines (EVMs) by an independent agency. While dismissing the case, the court said “there is no material on record to indicate the Election Commission is not fulfilling its mandate.” 

(2) The TEC in fact recommended again and again that the veil of secrecy surrounding source codes should be lifted. In 2013, the TEC said that a facility be provided so the “code in the EVM units can be read out by an approved external unit and the code so read may be compared with corresponding reference code to show that code is same as that in the reference units. The scope of comparision is only to ensure that there is no trojan or other malware for EVMs in use.” 

This report of 2013 was the last the government shared with activist Venkatesh Nayak via RTI. No report has been made public post 2013. 

(3) India’s disproportionate secrecy is in marked contrast to other countries still using electronic voting devices. 

(4) Emails and phone calls to officials of the ECI and spokesperson elicited no response. However, government officials told The Wire, “There is no reason why the source code information should be shared. People have gone to the Supreme Court again and again on this matter and their efforts have been rebuffed. The Election Commission has answered the court each time. These are nothing but motivated questions.” 

Former CEC, Ashok Lavasa, says, “There have been a number of discussions on making source code public though the ECI goes by what the TEC says. The ECI prefers to be guided by academics like those at the TEC and go with their wisdom.” 

(5) In an RTI response to Venkatesh Nayak, BEL admitted that the chip they are using is from US-based NXP semiconductors. In addition, the NXP website says, this is not OTP. Instead, it has three different kinds of memory – SRAM, FLASH AND EEPROM. All three types can erase and rewrite data, or retain data bits in its memory or the memory can be electronically erased and rewritten. In other words, software that can be overwritten or reprogrammed cannot have the safeguards of being one time programmed. 

In a paper on EVMs in 2010, a committee including Michigan University professor Alex J. Halderman had this to say with reference to expert committee members picked for EVMs: “This time the committee members were A.K. Agarwala and D.T. Shahani, with P.V. Indiresan serving as chair. All three were affiliated with IIT Delhi, but, like the first committee, none appear to have had prior computer security expertise. Again, the committee members did not have access to EVM source code and relied on presentations, demonstrations, and site visits with the manufacturers. 

“In their report, the ECI has reiterated its view that the machines were “tamper-proof”. 

In fact, Professor Indiresan is reported to have once said that questioning the ECI’s integrity is like asking Sita to undergo trial by fire.

Observations on the above facts and revelations:

(1) Judgment of SCI is beyond ridiculous - judiciary needs education on the concept of "Open Source" (ironically CJI, DY Chandrachud is a votary of "Open Source" technologies - having introduced a number of open source ICT based innnovations he only needs to be reminded of the benefits of Open Source in a voting system which is plainly a public service system); citizens right to know that fair processes are in place for elections is non-trivial; knowledge of source code cannot compromise national security; policy of executive is violative of citizens right to information; finally the alibi of IPR in not sharing the source code is a big joke - the program for EVM is one a junior programmer can write - even an elevator operations program will be more complex in comparison! 

(2) TEC report of 2013 is absolutely correct - made by competent people of integrity

(3) India can learn from USA, Australia and many other countries before claiming to be mother of democracy - the article cites many examples

(4) ECI boss needs to show some spine, it is doable - s/he can take inspiration from late T.N. Seshan

(5) These so called ECI's tech experts claiming the EVMs are tamper proof and that ECI cannot be questioned - are at best digital illiterates or worse - individuals of compromised integrity - like Sita, they must be subjected to undergo trial by fire!

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RELATED

Challenges to EVM and reaction of authorities: Notes

(See the link in the notes to the most ingenious hack - 4pm New Network - viral video)

See in this 5 min video the striking pattern of BJP wins whenever the counting happened after a delay of a week or more of polling; BJP lost more seats whenever the counting happened soon after polling..

Ds4 News clipping of 5M:53S

EVM AND BJP winning pattern - mere coincidence?

8-Dec-23 INC TV Chhatisgarh voting % changed by ECI after having announced the voting percentage two days earlier and confirming that EVMs were sealed and placed in a strong room. ADR representative has pointed this out. Reply from ECI? Tweet

Citizens’ Commission on Elections’ Report on EVMs and VVPAT - Report of 11 pages of 8-Apr-21 - recently signed by 6,500 eminent people Report

EVM Voting anomalies and ECI's stonewalling - Research paper and articles: Link

12-Dec-23 The Wire - Meetu Jain's article on the bill GOI intends to pass that will replace CJI by a Minister of PM's choice in the Committee that appoints CEC and ECs - making ECI totally subservient to the Government: Link

Electoral Reforms India urgently needs - Anil Srivastava's blog:  Link

Myth of Muslims overtaking Hindus in India - evidence of relative population growths should dispel the contrived fright of many Hindus

 Synopsis:

Worldwide experience and data shows that TFR (Total Fertility Rate - average number of children born per woman of child bearing age) declines with economic well-being and a certain minimum level of "awareness" (children are not "God's gift" - rather the result of unprotected copulation). TFR should be used to project the popluation growth / decline of a group and NOT religion or practices of polygamy etc. followed by its people. The TFR of Muslims in India is higher than that of Hindus today, however, it is declining faster than that of Hindus as the poorer Muslim group is lifted out of poverty. If policies that impinge on economic well-being of groups are non-discriminatory then it is safe to assume that before long, the TFRs of Hindus and Mulims will level up - there is nothing to show that in future, Hindus' TFR will be lower than that of Muslims. Evidence: The Muslim country - UAE's TFR today is 1.5 (lower than 1.6 which is the TFR of few "well-off" States of India - TN, AP, HP, J&K - before the State was broken up) and Yemen's TFR of 3.8 is close to Bihar's TFR, the poorest State - which has TFR of 3.7).  In all likelihood the share of Muslims population in India will peak at 18% and then stay level; in 1951 this share was 10% - it increased due to greater poverty of the Muslims group - not because of religious practices, or some conspiracy; Past Muslim immigrants contributed marginally to the risen share (legal or illegal immigrants "claimed to be" between 4 million and 20 million is about 0.4% to 2% of India's population). [The latest TFR figures for Indian States are lower than quoted above - which are presented for comparison, for e.g. Bihar's TFR has fallen to 3]. 

There are lot of misconceptions people have on the subject of "population explosion" and "Hindu vs Muslim Population growth". This is due to both misinformation and disinformation. The world is changing too fast for many people. Most people are not up to speed with latest data and research, it is inevitable they reach wrong conclusions due to obsolete understanding or worldview they carry in their head (misinformation) or due to agenda driven propaganda (disinformation).

Then there are ignorant (or daft) people who cannot understand that numbers of men and women are nearly always equal and that children are born to women and not men, therefore, population growth should be projected based on average number of children born per woman and not on how many average children a subset of polygamous men has fathered.

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Modi-Shah and Sangh Parivar have run a successful (brain-washing) campaign to frighten Hindus that Muslims will soon overrun them in India and the Muslims are working through a love jihad conspiracy to establish a Muslim Caliphate to rule the world. Most Bhakts have closed their minds to evidence and they are convinced that official statistics are wrong or the data is twisted to hide the rising population of Muslims. These folks believe that in India the proportion of Muslim population has risen manifold since independence (actually the Muslim population proportion has increased from 10% in 1951 - first census - to ~14.2% in 2011 - last census - https://shorturl.at/bwANS ) and now the Muslims are reproducing like rabbits who typically have 5 wives and 25 kids ("ham panch hamare pachhees" - this was Modi's jibe at Muslims in 2002 when he asked rhetorically why should Government provide relief to Muslim rehabilitation camps set up after the communal riots) or they are converting Hindu girls through love jihad or they are infiltrating through borders (Amit Shah called them "termites" that are in need of extermination).  All these beliefs are reinforced through a tsunami of propaganda and fake videos and narratives on social media. As a result even educated Hindus refuse to see the evidence to the contrary.

 

 

First lets understand there is no population explosion any longer in ALMOST ALL REGIONS OF THE WORLD. After we have understood the underlying reasons for the phenomenon of population explosion that occurred only in the last couple centuries, we will examine the question of population growth of different groups within a region - groups defined by income levels and groups defined by religion or culture.

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The misinformation of population explosion can be quickly dispelled by watching three video clips of late Dr. Hans Rosling in this note (please go through this note and the short video clips before reading further) :

Population growth - from "Factfulness" written by Dr. Rosling

Dr. Rosling was one the world's top presenters (if you like what he says, buy his book - Factfulness).

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Now lets turn our attention to India and the differences between the factors that determine the population growth of Hindus and Muslims. Here one has to get over a lot of disinformation.

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In 1951 the total population of India was 361 Million and in 2020 it grew to 1,380 Million.

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As Muslims population grew 485% vs Hindus 259% between 1951 and 2020, many people and most of right wingers, led by BJP and RSS leaders, ask  isn't it obvious, "Muslims will overrun Hindus?"

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In 1951, of the total population, Muslims constituted 10% and Hindus 84%. In 2020 the Muslims share was estimated to have risen to 15% and Hindus share fell to 79%. So can't we extrapolate the past trend and conclude that eventually Muslims will be majority and Hindus a minority?

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Population projections should not be made without looking at the underlying factors.

Population growth of a community (or a group) is a function of multiple factors

• Total Fertility Rate (TFR),
• Longevity (infant mortality affects this)
• Migration  i.e. immigration (entering) and emigration (leaving)
• Conversion (changing over from one group to another).

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If between two groups, Longevity, Migration and Conversion remain similar or vary marginally, then the population growth difference between the two groups can be accounted by differences in TFR ONLY. Lets look at the last three factors first, before we turn our attention to TFR of Hindus and Muslims.

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LONGEVITY, MIGRATION and CONVERSION

In India, the longevity and migration differences between Hindus and Muslims can be assumed to be negligible - whatever migration happened in the past has been accounted in the census. There were claims of 4 to 20 million illegal migrants from Bangladesh - recent surveys revealed less than 2 million (i.e. less than 0.2% of India's population); going forward the numbers of Muslims trying to illegally enter Bangladesh exceeds the number in the reverse direction! References at : The story of Muslim settlers from across the border;  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_immigration_to_India No one has reported any authoritative data of increasing migration of Muslims or increasing longevity of Muslims which is greater than Hindus - so these factors cease to have any influence on future population projections. However, about the figures of continuing conversion, into or out of the two religions, there are lot of controversies but little data. There is one survey conducted by PEW Research in 2020 and it concludes that there is negligible conversion, if at all; there is a net gain of people converting into Hinduism (0.8% addition and 0.7% reduction of Hindu population due to religious conversions). [The relevant portions of the report are copied below (so you may skip reading the full 2020 Pew Research Center Survey or go through it later).]

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In a 2020 Pew Research Center survey of nearly 30,000 adults across India, very few indicated they had switched religions since childhood. Among adults who say they were raised as Hindus, 99% still identify as Hindu. Fully 97% of those raised as Muslims are still Muslims in adulthood. And among Indians who were raised as Christians, 94% are still Christians. Moreover, those who do switch religions tend to cancel each other out; among all Indian adults, for example, 0.7% were raised Hindu but do not currently identify as such, while 0.8% were raised outside of the religion but are now Hindu.

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Interfaith marriage also is rare, and widely frowned upon. In the same survey, 99% of married Hindus, 98% of married Muslims and 95% of married Christians say they have a spouse of the same faith. Similar shares of Hindus and Muslims, as well as 92% of Christians, say their spouse was also raised in their current religion. Furthermore, 82% of Indians say that it is at least somewhat important to prevent women in their community from marrying someone of another religion, and 81% said the same for men, including about two-thirds who say each is very important.

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POLYGAMY is NOT a relevant factor for projecting population growth - this is misinformation.

Many people erroneously believe that communities that permit multiple wives (polygamy) grow faster. Most people have a patriarchal view in their head, therefore, they imagine a family led by a male and count the family members while calculating population growth. In a matriarchal view, a person would imagine a woman head and ask the question how many family members exist per family of the woman. In fact what matters is the number of children born per woman and the total number of women in the community; it doesn't matter whether the woman is married to 1 or 0.5 or  0.01 men (matriarchal view) or  1 man with one wife, one man with two wives or one man with 100 wives (patriarchal view) - BOTH ARE SAME. Generally in all communities, there are equal number of males and females. So if few males take many wives, there will be many males without wives at any point of time. This does not in any way alter the fact that the population will only grow depending upon the average number of children born per woman x total number of women. Since the ratio of men and women is likely same across all religions, what really matters is the TFR difference between the religions. See the link below about Ziona family picture - 39 wives or 1/39 Husband?

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TOTAL FERTILITY RATE

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TFR is the average number of children born per woman of child bearing age. TFR of 2.1 IN A GROUP is considered replacement level, i.e. the population remains steady (additions equal deaths) - Experts agree that today, TFR higher than 2.1 would result in population increasing over time and lower than 2.1 would result in population declining over time.

According to UN, India's TFR has been steadily reducing and it has now touched 2.1. For Hindus and Muslims in India, the migration and conversion are negligible, the differences in longevity are also negligible, therefore, future population growth of Hindus and Muslims will be determined by their respective TFRs over time.

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Latest references from NFHS-5 INDIA REPORT (2019-21)

TFR Religion wise in Table 4.2 Page#124 of Vol I

Hindu TFR = 1.94; Muslim TFR (highest) = 2.36; Jain TFR (lowest) = 1.60

State and UT wise TFR Table 4.3 page#125 of Volume I

Muslims high proportion States J&K TFR = 1.41; Kerala TFR = 1.79; WB TFR = 1.64

Hindu high proportion States UP TFR = 2.35; Bihar TFR = 2.98
Per capita income rather than religion would explain the above differences in TFR

The FUTURE: As per the TOI article from which above population figures for India are quoted, India's  population is likely to peak at 1.6 Billion in 2045-50; Muslims share will peak at 18% and Hindus will still be the majority at 77%.

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So it is a myth that Muslims will overrun Hindus in India - this will never happen. Though the TFR of Hindus is slightly lower than that of Muslims at present, the rate of decline of Muslim's TFR is higher than that of Hindus. Therefore, the two TFRs will level up or it is possible that Muslims TFR may decline below that of Hindus.

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TOI article of 10-Jun-22 written by Rohan Rohit, Editor of TOI and ET is included in the following note (the excellent article explains the methodologies used for projection and it is worth a read). Also included are State wise TFR figures and Hindu Muslim Population shares as per 2011 Census. The 2021 Census was not conducted due to pandemic.

 

India Population growth projections - by 2036 the Population will be 1.52 billion; 39% urban and TFR will decline to 1.73

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The above are just two of viral WhatsApp messages tsunami in India that is created and sustained by the digital army of BJP.

 

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Scroll down to the  amazing Ziona family picture in this note:

 

Bogey of population Jihad (of Muslims) - what about Hindus themselves?

 

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TFR in MENA & N. AFRICA regions has already declined to about the replacement level.

UAE is an affluent Muslim country - its TFR (in 2021) is down to 1.5! Yemen is a poor Muslim country - its TFR (in 2021) is 3.8.

 

Source: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?locations=ZQ

 

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BEST & WORST NEWS:

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World will be a better place without religion. Therefore, it is worth noting that the importance of religion and religiosity is declining rapidly with enlightenment. The fastest growing group in the world today, after "Islamists" (followers of Islam) is that of atheists and the irreligious - i.e. unaffiliated people. It is certain that with reducing poverty in the "Islamists" group, their TFR will decline and then the highest rate of growth will be that of "unaffiliated group" and it is this group which will be the dominant one before the end of 21st Century. Bad news is that before that happens, the human race could suffer a cataclysmic catastrophe if it does not learn to avoid a nuclear war or if it continues to degrade the environment and crosses the tipping point beyond which climate change becomes unmanageable: Read about the doomsday clock at the link below in RELATED articles. RATHER THAN WORRY ABOUT ISLAMISTS TAKING OVER THE WORLD WE SHOULD BE WORRIED ABOUT SAVING ORGANISED HUMANITY WHICH IS FACING AN EXISTENTIAL THREAT!

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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_irreligion

 

Unaffiliated group is likely to become the fastest growing one after the Islamists in poor countries are lifted above the abject poverty line.

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Twenty most atheist countries of world (%'s vary from 27% to 52% - economically well off tend to become atheists):  Source (26-Apr-23): https://shorturl.at/hyEO1

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RELATED

 

* Links

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Fertility rate in India: Literacy leaves its mark as fertility rate goes south - State wise TFR

 

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"Hindu Rashtra" and "Controlling Population Explosion" are two favourite projects of RSS and BJP; subtext is Muslims will overrun Hindus

 

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Does the fix for India's well-being lie in controlling its population growth, and more particularly the Muslim population growth (are they the culprits)??

 

======  DOOMSDAY CLOCK   =======

Humans worst instincts are overtaking the world:

There are more important existential issues than Hindu - Muslim population growths. Today is the most dangerous moment in history - 90 seconds to midnight on the doomsday clock of atomic scientists reminds us of the danger.

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https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/current-time/

 

<< END >>

India at 75 - how has it done so far and what lies in future

 What has been India's greatest achievement @75?

Without doubt it is that, though far from perfect, India is a functioning SECULAR DEMOCRACY that elects its political leaders every five years without any military coup!

It was India's good luck that it's top leadership around the time it gained its independence was totally secular (top leader Nehru was openly agnostic), with a scientific temper, highly educated, far from being Hindu Supremacists. Due to this good luck India became the world's marvel of a democracy and not a theocratic State even though its large majority of population was not literate for many decades. The Constituent Assembly also must deserve immense credit for producing a constitution, though it was a huge copy paste of the British Government Act of 1935 and American constitution ("We the people.." of 1787 vintage), that was both good and bad. Good because it helped India stay a FLAWED BUT FUNCTIONAL DEMOCRACY with well defined principles of separation of power among the four pillars of governance architecture- Legislature, Judiciary, Executive and Press. Bad because it is NOT FLEXIBLE ENOUGH to empower the local governments, as their capacities build up, to the extent it is necessary. It is bad because it PREVENTS ENTRY OF SMART AND HONEST people to occupy positions of power because it requires black money to contest and win elections. The top leaders from Nehru onwards until Manmohan Singh respected the architecture. But after Modi took over in 2014, this architecture is under great stress and it has already cracked up significantly - yet its covert and even overt subversion is in progress, egged on by Modi's cult followers and retreat of political opponents and dissidents who are being blackmailed, bought-over through money power or jailed through abuse of both state institutions and Judiciary .

There is little doubt India would have become a Hindu Pakistan by now, if back then in 1940s, it had the misfortune of having leaders of the RSS variety whose mission is to create a Hindu Rashtra. Modi had been a hard core full-time RSS pracharak before becoming a successful politician - expectedly, he is an obscurantist ("ancient Hindus could transplant an Elephant head onto a human"), uneducated (his declaration in the affidavit filed to ECI has not been investigated despite charges of it being a fake MA in "Entire Political Science"), narrow minded (uses official machinery to visit and inaugurate only Hindu temples never a mosque or Church or Gurudwara - mocks Western educated economists or ignores English speaking journalists), inward looking ("Atmanirbhar Bharat" and many such slogans) and a Hindu Supremacist (his jibe to Muslims - "Hum panch hamare pachcheese" while visiting a relief camp of 2002 riots, - a Muslim ghetto which he called a "child producing factory" -  says it all). Modi has been labeled as the "Divider-in-Chief" by the Time Magazine because of his expertise in polarising the society.

What is the future for India?

Unless the 63% who didn't vote for BJP formations under Modi in 2019 General Elections, consolidate themselves and expand their influence by uniting in opposition to BJP, and defeating it in 2024 General Elections, India's decline (Aakar Patel, in his book Price of the Modi Years, has listed 49 out of 53 Key Performance Indicators in which Modi Government has shown a NEGATIVE TREND) will accelerate and it will turn into a Hindu Pakistan with similar poor economic performance. The potential of Indians to progress and lead the world will be compromised and India will fall below the important global average progress parameters - in terms of economy, education and health.  India will cease to be a secular state and it could even disintegrate.

At present India is struggling to remain a secular non-theocratic state with its declining rankings of democratic freedoms - freedom of expression, press freedom and so on. As Romila Thapar says, the current dispensation believes in the discarded TWO-NATION theory advanced by James Mill in his book published in 1817 - History of British India - that said the Muslim India and Hindu India are two nations in a constant state of conflict.

Sans Hindu Supremacists, India's future is bright. Indians are great innovators. With 100 unicorns and dozens of top global CEOs Indians can lead the world eventually. What works for Indians is the spirit of fighting difficult odds. Many MNCs are setting up GCCs in India. IBM and Accenture have lacs of employees in India. India produces world's maximum number of STEM graduates and pretty soon doctors and medics too. If independent quality testing institutions are set up and foreign collaboration (and FDI) allowed for foreign Universities, Digital Health Mission given a push and local Governments empowered, India's growth potential can be realised much faster than Ruchir Sharma has forecast. 

Kaushik Basu compliments India's founding fathers.. why?

https://twitter.com/kaushikcbasu/status/1558720810663251969?s=20&t=fmETlZUfZ2Idt7X2aCp3iQ

https://twitter.com/kaushikcbasu/status/1559062817864830976?s=20&t=fmETlZUfZ2Idt7X2aCp3iQ

15-Aug-22 Indian Army recorded this rendition of a little girl in the East

https://twitter.com/hvgoenka/status/1559066577672486912?t=wfsmL0HGerqebyf4O6odPw&s=19

At the highest battlefield in the world..

https://twitter.com/ANI/status/1559034442223878144?t=Hf09xrtCaTphLVI4GyLg0A&s=19

2022 One song 75 Artistes Jaya Hey 2.0 - full five verses of the original song of which only the first one constitutes the National Anthem. Read the description afterwards!

https://youtu.be/79Y8wvwk28A

2010 Phir Mile Sur

https://youtu.be/C9WMr7FQfHE

1988 Mile Sur Mera Tumhara - original - Lyricist - Piyush Pandey

https://youtu.be/-jf6pwtPqCs

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mile_Sur_Mera_Tumhara

14-Aug-22 IE P Chidambaram - How much of a sovereign Republic are the Indian people? Not just the Government, the people also must be free in a true sovereign Country. Will we remain so by 2047?

https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/p-chidambaram-writes-democracy-has-to-be-practised-every-day-through-dialogue-discussion-debate-and-dissent-8088596/

6-Aug-22 Ruchir Sharma interviewed by Prannoy Roy

India's economic progress in 75 years - in charts and succinctly explained. India has progressed considerably but so has the world. India ranks only in the bottom 25 percentile globally in terms of per capita income..

Brilliant analysis here.

Unless economic freedom improves, it will be 18 years before India's per capita income doubles!

https://youtu.be/Tla9BshcGJU

14-Aug-22 Caste system is the hall mark of Hindu religion and it is alive and kicking in a "secular" India. RSS claims to best define the Hindu Rashtra. Religion causes brain damage: RSS school teacher commits atrocity in Rajasthan..

Dalit boy, 9 years old, beaten for touching pot of drinking water reserved for the teacher, dies

https://twitter.com/1963kishorenand/status/1558764724547858433?t=9LEEZWUbcoLf0jzxUx97_A&s=19

RELATED

Romila Thapar - "I don't like Modi's India", its view is too narrow, doesn't give space to the potential of Indians

Aakar Patel - persecution and prosecution

Modi's subversion of Democracy & Judiciary

Nehru's all time great speech.. At the stroke of midnight..

27-May-22 Rahul Gandhi tweets about Nehru's relevance today.

https://twitter.com/RahulGandhi/status/1530030169271832576?t=ieFHHBfJESjNkslMURJrvg&s=19

14-Aug-22 Manmohan Singh writes in The Hindu / Business Line - hard won freedoms must be protected ..

https://twitter.com/t_d_h_nair/status/1559225596051222528?s=20&t=YK2BiRqGApxU7hJYOy67pw

15-Aug-22 PM's one-hour speech from the Red Fort

https://youtu.be/3thON7ZOSlI

15-Aug-47 Nehru's speech from the Red Fort

https://twitter.com/Jairam_Ramesh/status/1559414534921945089?s=20&t=t4tSKytRtRpX_wByTsBZRw

16-Aug-22 The Wire Ramachandra Guha interview by Karan Thapar. RG says India@75 is reduced to a 30:70 democracy from a 50:50 India@65  democracy it was. He laments that earlier we could claim that at least the elections were honoured but now even that is not possible to claim - in many big states BJP has toppled the elected governments with the money power - buying over MLAs with allegedly the rate of Rs.40 Cr to 50 Cr per MLA. Earlier the State institutions were not so independent but now even Judiciary has become a part of the executive.

Modi cult is without a parallel in the history of the world -  leadership cult has never been good for any country - it wasn't so for Libya, Cuba, Italy, Germany or China and it won't be so for India. 

https://youtu.be/C_kL-3vCius

17-Aug-22 ET Op Ed by TK Arun- biggest failures of our "democracy" - two examples cited - Salman Rushdie's case and Indra, the 9-year old Dalit boy who died after being beaten up the upper caste teacher's whose "reserved pot of water" he had touched. These failures are:

i) State respects and displays timidity before claims of "religious hurt" and

ii) State abdicates it's responsibility to uphold equality of all, regardless of caste, in practice and sensibilities and leaves it to religion to sort out the violations.

Globalisation and Internationalism - G20 India's presidency

All enlightened sensible leaders will root for globalisation. In the last few decades (preceding Trump and Modi), globalisation and multilateralism got agency and these forces of co-operation yielded international supply chains, cost-efficient production hubs and startups which quickly became MNCs. Collaboration or global supply chains imply  interdependence. Interdependent countries will tend to avoid conflicts. "Atmanirbhar"  type of slogans will appeal to many people who imagine themselves gaining in capability to fight wars - even though it is a delusion that any country in today's world can survive in complete isolation! When politicians lacking intellectual depth win elections, they tend to consolidate their power by pandering to tribalism - if such leaders happen to be clever with using media, particularly social media, their task becomes easier. Even in democracies, such leaders portray themselves as "Rescuers"  or "Victims of Conspirators" and they succeed in spreading false fears and hatred of "others" which fuel tribalism; people across demographics start to believe in bizarre conspiracy theories , disharmony in the society increases but before long the "Rescuer" acquires the status of a Demigod.  Trump and Modi are great examples of such leaders who lack intellectual capabilities but compensate for their handicap with their mastery over exploiting media. These two leaders between themselves, have managed to set the  ideas of "Internationalism" and a "Global World", back by few decades.

Now with India's presidency of G20, Modi Government must reverse track and proclaim "Globalisation"! Modi will only utter platitudes (his favourite is “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam”) and try to score brownie points with some new slogans and year long event management - across 50 cities in 200 meetings (https://bit.ly/3VfAUg5).

20-Dec-22 ET Op Ed "Globalisation Is Our Business", by N Chandrasekaran. India is the President of G20 formation for one year. Now the business leaders will have to contribute to actual actions towards achieving greater Globalisation. This is a good action plan described by Chandrasekaran.

CONTRAST THE IDEAS OF NATIONALISM POPULARISED BY TRUMP AND MODI WITH THOSE OF GANDHI & NEHRU

MK Gandhi had the intellectual heft to be able to articulate or chart out an untrodden path not just for himself, but for his country and the whole world!  In comparison, Trump and Modi are intellectual dwarfs - Ramchandra Guha has called Modi Government the most anti-intellectual; Trump has disdain for learning or knowledge acquisition.

Only very credible, not just enlightened and courageous, leaders could articulate the supremacy of Internationalism over Nationalism, the way Gandhi did - and be taken seriously. Gandhi was one of the most popular leaders in history. Gandhi did not become popular by pandering to tribalism. On matters of tolerance or internationalism, Gandhi took exactly the opposite stand to tribalism!

Nehru was another leader with a comparable intellectual heft. Nehru's ideas on internationalism (see point#1 from excerpts of The Discovery of India)

DISCOVERY OF INDIA - Nehru's important ideas

TED Dialogues watch Yuval Noah Harari - on Internationalism.

Nationalism vs Globalisation - Actually globalism or internationalism does not preclude nationalism - ideas of Yuval Noha Harai and Nehru on cooperation

29-Oct-20 The Atlantic - Donald Trump's policy, America First made USA isolated, "America Alone"

4-Jan-19 Brookings.edu

"America First" is making the world a worse place, there is a better policy..

Vaccination rollout in India- are we ready? We need a BIG Information System to succeed..

Vaccination program has many components - Vaccine development; manufacturing vaccine, storage and distribution of vaccine and finally administering the vaccine to the subjects by trained personnel.

At present (as of 25-Nov-20) what is clear is that multiple Vaccines will indeed by ready (available for buying by Governments) in a month or two. Nothing else is clear in India, at least it is not in public domain. This note is about the type of Information System we need. Without a very good Information System, we will incur big costs and continuing grief!

WHO reports over 100 vaccines under trial. Only COVAX program is committing supplies to all countries - this is a joint initiative of Governments and Private Organizations and individuals (notably, Bill Gates). Rich countries have cornered multiple doses (Canada has ordered 9 doses per person). Poor countries haven't made any acquisitions yet. India has not made public any Vaccine acquisition budget nor the price or quantities it will provide to its citizens.

Vaccination program will require an integrated national application involving big data and AI programs - its stake holders will be everyone living in India, Vaccine manufacturers, Cold chain distribution & logistics providers, Healthcare centres and its personnel, Testing Labs and various authorised personnel who will manage the vaccine program. It must contend with multiple vaccines with different protocols (e.g. 1/2 dose followed by 1 full dose after 28 days in case of Vaccine A may differ from 1 + 1 at an interval of 40 days in case of Vaccine B) and different requirements of storage temperatures at central warehouse vs. transportation temperatures etc. and different regions with varying Ro (R naught is a measure of infection Reproduction rate - 1 or below 1 means pandemic will die down, higher figure means pandemic is going to increase the numbers of infected persons). Priority lists must be made regionwise and Vaccine and personnel made available in adequate measures regionwise - and this will need to be dynamically adjusted based on Ro, numbers of persons according to priority categories in target areas and Vaccine & personnel availability. So, by any measure, the proposed online application will be one of the biggest information systems project anywhere in the world, with the exception of China. India's Arogya Setu, AB-PMJAY applications can help give the proposed Vaccine Management System (lets call it VMS), a head-start.

Vaccines are being introduced in the fight against CoVid-19 with a crashed development schedule, therefore, it is vital to monitor their claimed "safety" and "efficacy". 100% safety means no one administered the vaccine suffered any adverse side effects (one may allow and manage minor side effects - for e.g. low grade fever). 100% efficacy means not a single person given the vaccine got infected afterwards in the planning horizon - the time over which a particular Vaccine is going to be effective should also be a performance measure but this is at present not being reported by any Vaccine manufacturer because the observed time horizon has been too short. 

Few key measures that will help the Government create a successful VMS:

1. The specifications of VMS must be the responsibility of a multidisciplinary team comprising - Vaccine Scientists & Manufacturers, Doctors, Epidemiologists, Public-health experts, Economists, Data Scientists, Top Solution Architects and Large Scale Delivery Managers (of the calibre of Nandan Nilekani).
2. VMS must contend with political and legislative issues, therefore, PM's stewardship is mandatory- for e.g. priority of vaccination policy of Centre must not conflict with State's points of view, Aadhaar linking must be mandatory with necessary legislative support (as Aadhaar was passed as a Money Bill, SC has limited its applications).
3. Arogya Setu must be broadened to include Testing results input by authorised personnel. 164.7 million users are having the Arogya Setu App on their smartphones. Surprisingly, there is no Testing data point- for e.g. I took an Antigen Test (RAT) administered by Ahmedabad Municipal Corp. at our residential complex about two months ago and last week a RT-PCR test at a private lab because I had come in contact with a friend who became Corona positive - the Arogya Setu is blind to these data points - authorised personnel of AMC and the private lab could have updated my record in the Arogya Setu App by using my Aadhaar number which was requested (but not demanded) by all three transactions - i) while registering with Arogya Setu, ii) AMC RAT and iii) RT-PCR test at private lab.
4. AB-PMJAY Aushman Bharat - PM Jan Arogya Yojna has issued e-Cards to 126.8 Million individuals- this application has even got family members data. I am not sure if it has Aadhaar number of each family member- if it has, it would be of great help in VMS.
5. Aadhaar link is mandatory for VMS to succeed- why? VMS can pull data from Arogya Setu and AB-PMJAY databases and create a non-duplicate data of people- it can assign each member of VMS a Health ID (which may be administered by National Digital Health Mission). Data can also be pulled using Aadhaar ID from various other lists that must be uploaded into VMS by Medical Associations and Health Care service providers from across the country. Without Aadhaar link, none of this is possible. Building an online database of 1.36 Billion Indians is out of the question without Aadhaar link. If the Government doesn't realise the importance of legislative support, it is bound to hit a wall before long, due to expected legal challenges to mandating Aadhaar disclosure for enrollment into VMS.
6. VMS must provide APIs - Application Programming Interface - for coupling other applications already running in multiple places so that an individual's health status can be updated. It is vital for tracking the health status of each vaccinated person - at least in the first few months - any side effects? any infection (test results must be updated) and all this must be allowed to be done by authorised persons (organizations) who are treating or testing the individual anywhere in the country (or the world).
7. VMS must analyze the available data and the state of research and accordingly generate advisories or SMS followup action in terms of further tests to be performed or treatment to be taken for each member. It can of course also generate advisories regionwise for the type of vaccines to use, the intensity of tests (RAT or RT-PCR) to do etc. which will immensely help local Governments.
8. Every individual does not have a smartphone. Therefore, VMS should generate SMS and also accept inputs from SMS replies. And it must support vernacular languages as per individual member's preference.
9. Government must not place its bets only on one vaccine- it must use VMS to measure safety AND efficacy performances of multiple vaccines - introduced in the SAME region - to rule out influence of geographical differences- of people or climate.
10. Government has invested much in building brand awareness of Arogya Setu and AB-PMJAY which it must encash- it may run campaigns to say that VMS will assign priorities and determine the schedule of giving you vaccine based on your data in these respective applications- therefore, please provide your latest data in these Apps, and please help your family and friends to register soon.
11. Government has lost the opportunity of creating a great health information infrastructure when the Corona pandemic broke. Under the pressure of avoiding CoVid-19 infection, everyone would have been inclined to i) prepare and pass data protection Act; India can use a ready-made template of General Data Protection Rights (or the health related sections of GDPR - of EU/UK), ii) pass Aadhaar applications bill through Lok Sabha and iii) get citizens to provide the minimum required data, provided the benefits of free or subsidised testing, treatment and vaccines were publicized. At the very least, GOI should have provided tests free or at discounted rates on a massive scale. The funding for development of tests was grossly inadequate - it should have been at least two magnitudes higher. This failure to fund massive testing has cost us dearly. We have lost at least 10% of GDP and 134K lives. Tens of millions have been rendered jobless and pushed down the abject poverty line. At least 75% of both these costs, monetary and non-monetary, could have been avoided with a smarter strategy of massive testing and locking down infected individuals rather than the whole Country,  States or Cities. Only recently, has testing been scaled up and instead of locking down whole cities, we are locking down "micro-zones" which is somewhat closer to "individual level lockdown" that is (and was) the ideal solution, pending an effective vaccination program roll out or the discovery of a treatment of CoVid-19.

References:

26-Nov-20 ET Each State asked to submit priority list of people to be given vaccine first

https://m.economictimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/cms-told-to-decide-vaccine-quantity/articleshow/79415490.cms

What is eVIN

https://www.undp-capacitydevelopment-health.org/en/capacities/focus/innovation-and-technologies/digitizing-the-supply-chain/the-electronic-vaccine-ntelligence-etwork-evin-in-india/

IE eVIN and CVBMS rolled out. NEGVAC formed to oversee the Vaccine rollout plan by GOI. No sign of a single integrated application- this portends suboptimal utilisation of resources. 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/indianexpress.com/article/explained/what-is-evin-and-how-will-it-be-used-for-distributing-covid-19-vaccine-7065083/lite/

24-Nov-20 COVAX latest news - this program is working with global cooperation- Governments + Private Individuals and organizations.

https://www.gavi.org/covax-facility

23-Nov-20 Livemint - The global cooperation is missing so Vaccine distribution and administration is not likely to be equitable.

https://www.livemint.com/news/india/we-are-all-working-ahead-of-the-curve-on-vaccine-delivery-shobana-kamineni-apollo-hospitals-11606117422376.html

Related:

http://anilsrivastavablog.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2020-07-20T23:57:00-07:00&max-results=7&m=1

Does the fix for India's well-being lie in controlling its population growth?

I think that the real problem is not the population growth rate, rather it is the management of the ratio of GDP to Population ( Per capita GDP = GDP/Population) which is one of the important determinants of the standard of living. Population growth is declining rapidly in India, and in almost all countries across the world. Every country strives to give it's people a rising standard of living, ensuring at the same time that no one is left below the subsistence level or hungry (India ranks near the bottom in the Hunger Index - behind all its neighbours). If the "average standard of living" goes up but the very poor remain very poor, it is not a sustainable or an acceptable outcome. Goal#1 out of 17 SDGs is for the world to wipe out abject poverty (UN / World Bank defines it as an income of 1.9 International Dollar per day) - most likely India will achieve this goal before the target date of 2030.

Population and GDP growth both need to be looked at together over the recent past for India and China which have similar size of populations.

India's per capita GDP = 2.3K USD p.a. (nominal) or 9.0K USD p.a. (PPP)

China's per capita GDP = 8.3 K USD p.a. (nominal) or 16.1K USD p.a. (PPP)

[Source:  https://tradingeconomics.com/china/gdp-per-capita-ppp]

India's population growth rate is approaching the replacement level, so it will soon not be the most important problem to fix!

India's current TFR (Total Fertility Rate) is < 2.3  

Replacement level TFR is ~ 2.1 (TFR below 2.1 means population will decline; Lancet is about to publish a report which shows India's population will decline to 1.09 Billion at the end of the century)

GOI's Budget 2019 report extract:  https://www.indiabudget.gov.in/economicsurvey/doc/vol1chapter/echap07_vol1.pdf

TFR in 13 States has already dipped below the replacement level of 2.1!

Notice that many Muslim population dominated States have a low TFR (Kerala & erstwhile J&K) - this is because they are having a better per capita income or the number of those living in abject poverty is lower than many other Hindu dominated States (e.g. UP and Bihar which have lowest per capita income and highest TFR)! TFR has more to do with well-being than caste or religion. (State wise per capita income:  https://www.statista.com/statistics/1027998/india-per-capita-income-by-state/)

Could it be that China being a Dictatorship need not worry about it's population growth (denominator) because it is confident of growing the GDP (numerator)? India being a Democracy (a functional anarchy) cannot expect to grow GDP like China, therefore, it must treat the population growth as the more important factor (denominator) to manage?

The above argument can be easily resolved. India is indeed growing it's GDP, though not as rapidly as China. It has lifted hundreds of millions in the new millennium above the poverty line - and that has resulted in TFR to drop. This massive reduction of people living in abject poverty was done through direct benefits and entitlements to the poor, besides achieving GDP growth at the second highest rate, after China. These measures included - MNREGA, FOOD SECURITY ACT, RIGHT TO EDUCATION during UPA and SBM during NDA.

There is ample evidence, across all countries of the world, the TFR drops when people are lifted above the subsistence level. 

The phenomenon of TFR reduction due to poverty reduction is best explained by Dr. Hans Rosling ..watch his video and few stunning graphs..

Population of growth - from "Factfulness" written by Dr. Rosling

There is a direct correlation between poverty reduction and population growth reduction. Rather than focusing or directing resources on "family planning - family size reduction", which was the thrust of Indian Government few decades ago, it should instead focus on targeted measures, including Direct Benefits Transfer, to the poorest segment of the population. The idea of Universal Basic Income (UBI) could easily be modified and more targeted delivery of benefits can happen with today's digital infrastructure - what Modi calls the JAM (Jandhan Account, Aadhaar and Mobile) enablement.

If you wish to dig deeper:

https://www.evernote.com/l/AldxHZo-v8BGLpmVwcEk-70fNkW_At_lcio/

POLITICS and POLICIES arising out of misconception or intentional exploitation of religious differences

If you don't have the picture of the phenomenon of TFR linkage to poverty in your head, you will come up with the wrong prescription for India's priorities. You will give precedence to "population explosion" instead of targeting poverty alleviation. This is exactly what the PM prescribed in his last independence day address (15-Aug-19). This bogey has a sex appeal in India, which PM has milked in the past elections.

PM flags population explosion: he needs to update his perspective - he is making the wrong prescription

Modi's infamous speech, "Ham panch hamare pachees" resonates till today with many Hindus who neither understand TFR nor the fact that Muslims constitute disproportionately larger share of the abjectly poor population.

Modi and his Bhakt's exhortations about curbing Muslim population: "Hum panch, hamare pachees"!!