-The Economic Times At a little over 14%, India has the third-largest Muslim population in the world. Are Indian Muslims confronting the void? Political parties are no longer engaging with Muslims like they used to. This process of withdrawal and fracturing began with the 2014 Lok Sabha elections and carries on in 2019. Globally, the pathologisation of Muslims began after 9/11, which entrenched Islamophobia, and moved the discourse around minorities entirely towards terror,...

-TheWire.in Democracy cannot be held prisoner to random sampling, especially when the EC won’t tell us what happens if a discrepancy between EVM tally and VVPAT slips is detected. “Check one grain of rice, and you will know if the whole vessel of rice is cooked.” This is an analogy that is often used to show that a small sample is enough to be sure of the result. But what happens if...

-Frontline.in An RTI-based public interest petition in the Bombay High Court points out that 20 lakh EVMs that the manufacturers affirm to have delivered are “missing” from the possession of the Election Commission. Issues relating to the “vulnerability” and “unreliability” of electronic voting machines (EVMs) have come up regularly in the context of the 2019 general election. Complaints filed by opposition parties on specific instances of malfunctioning of EVMs as well as...

-CaravanMagazine.in India is often hailed for its democracy, for empowering its poor and ordinary citizens to participate in the electoral process and play a role in shaping the country. This narrative has increasingly come under strain since the Supreme Court, through its March 2003 judgment in Union of India vs Association for Democratic Reforms, made it mandatory for candidates contesting elections to disclose their wealth, educational qualification, and criminal cases pending...

-PTI NEW DELHI: The State Bank of India has sold electoral bonds worth over Rs 3,622 crore in March and April this year, an RTI response has said. In a response provided to Pune-based Vihar Durve, the SBI said electoral bonds of Rs 1,365.69 crore were sold in March, which shot up by 65.21 per cent in April to Rs 2,256.37 crore. In April, most electoral bonds were sold in Mumbai at Rs...