-Outlook Chennai: The Election Commission of India today notified the period between November 11 and December 4 prohibiting conducting any exit poll and publishing or publicising in print or electronic media in the poll-bound and bypoll-bound states, including Tamil Nadu during the period. The bypoll to Yercaud (ST) Assembly constituency in Tamil Nadu will be held on December 4. The ECI notifies the period between 7 am on November 11, the first day...
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Invest in Girls' Education to Break Cycle of Poverty: UNICEF
-Outlook New Delhi: Investing in education of girls, especially the most marginalised, is required to make progress on most social indicators in India, according to UNICEF. To mark the second International Day of the Girl Child, UNICEF today organised a meeting with top Urdu editors in the capital. Speaking at the event, Urmila Sarkar, Chief of Education UNICEF, said, "Innovation in girls education will be instrumental to female empowerment and breaking the cycle...
More »The case for banning Opinion Polls-TCA Srinivasa-Raghavan
-The Business Standard A recent academic paper on probability theory shows how beliefs are influenced by interpretations of data rather than the data itself Ever since Indira Gandhi turned it into a closely-held family company - and even more so since Sonia Gandhi turned it into a brain-dead dinosaur - one of the hallmarks of the Congress party is that it often ends up doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. Whether...
More »Opinion Polls: disclosures on methodology and funding by pollsters are imperative -Zia Haq
-The Hindustan Times Even if Opinion Polls were to be curbed, the world's largest democracy would still be an exciting place for elections and psephologists alike. Only a little less democratic. So, pollsters have balked at the Election Commission's idea of restricting pre-poll surveys. But that's not the only debate, they say. Some leading Indian pollsters are worried about losing their precious credibility because of a few rotten apples. For one, there...
More »A flawed and unwarranted move
-The Hindu The Election Commission might be well-intentioned in seeking to ban Opinion Polls in the run-up to an election, but the move does not seem to be sound in law, and is certainly not desirable in practice. The reasoning for a ban is that Opinion Polls influence voters prior to polling, and therefore the results of such polls should be withheld until after the end of voting. Needless to say,...
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