Will social media play spoil sport or it will remain just a buzz?

Having developed the habit of looking at the twitter and FB every once in a while and by virtue of having a large of number of friends or those whom I follow, there are always some interesting one liners  or sarcastic cartoons freshly available in the plate. With political atmosphere hotting up ever since Namo been projected as PM candidate, the social media is abuzz with political satires. Every second it is throwing up some thing or other. does it really reflect the mood of nation ? will it have the same impact what potentially it could have ? There were days when elections were fought on rallies, posters, slogans and freebies. And people responded to these traditional election tools used by politicians and the political parties. But in last few elections, it is being perceived that traditional method is getting obscure and modern technology is replacing this traditional mode to woo voters. Even the surrogate method of advertising onTV & radio is also appearing outdated. 

A report by the Internet and Mobile Association of India and IRIS Knowledge Foundation suggest that there would be nearly 160 constituencies which will be highly impacted by social media , 67 medium impacted, 60 low impacted and 256 with no impact . Without getting into the details of methodology, this impacting  figure seems quite big and perhaps reason why the politicians who even cannot login to twitter are opening the twitter and FB accounts and getting on with hangout.  The "likes" and "followers" are becoming the barometer of their popularity. Social media seems to facilitate direct communication between unknown voters and creating heroes and villains in a matter of seconds.

As per a estimate there are close to 80 L FB users in India. Even if large no of them could be fake or in genuine people or sleeping users, the number is significant and represents a larger middle class. most importantly even if they don't go to polling stations, they have the power to create an opinion as they form the critical mass of society. Initially, everyone thought though social media has role to play,

but it doesn’t and it cannot guarantee transforming the same into turnout on polling day; same what used to be the case with election rallies. 

The caste factor will continue, the religion are here to stay, the free meal and loan waivers will continue to attract voters but all those who have been born after 80s and happen to be some how or other connected to social media will have impact on 2014. And ,back of their mind political trending topics on social media will have impact like the ads on the TVs have on children. No matter how much one ignores or keeps himself away, the brand developed through media makes us compulsive buyers. The impact might be felt less in rural areas which still has lesser smart phone penetrations but urban and middle class cannot be away from the # pappy vs # Feku debate. Most importantly, they are the perception creators to those who resides in rural areas if they happen to be connected to the roots. The branding is a chain reaction and works on word of mouth.

If nothing, the trend on social media sites for controversial statements, court verdicts on famous cases, scams, corruption will have major impact on voting patterns. However, it's not the number of likes or followers but impact of communication will determine the end result. A lot of people prefer to read , keep quite and form their opinion and don't press like button immediately or start writing comments....they are hidden opinion makers.

Mid-day murder in the name of Meal

The  wails of women is most heart-rending when heard from a distance but when one sees her banging her head against the mound of earth under which her son has been buried , it becomes difficult to stop even the stone-hearted person from crying. The scenes were horrific and shameful, one would feel himself living in the age when human kind was just transgressing from jungle man to member of civilized society . There were close to 25 children buried in the same premises where they were supposed to be blossomed into flowers. we saw it 1000s of Kms away from this place but sequence of events were disgusting. The unfolding of mechanism of facilities in education and health has left many questions to be answered. The primary schools and health care in the remote areas are just on the papers and in no circumstances can be called even the facilities. A school is running in a 20 ft * 15 ft room  with having facilities of meals which are made from poor quality rice and rotten vegetables . Needless to mention the quality of other ingredients of meal with hardly any supervision in cooking . teachers reported to the school on their mercy and supply chain of the food articles are controlled by a bigger nexus of politicians , babus and those who are lucky few to be involved in this.  There is hardly any health facility in vicinity and primary health care is in mess in absence of even basic facilities and doctors. Reaching to the nearest basic hospital is like climbing the mount everest. is it very far from sub-Sahara conditions? we are talking about the heartland of our country, having the most fertile agriculture land and most dense population. Why are we still living in these conditions and allowing such situations to happen? Is it only the political class to be blamed for this or the whole society has conspired for this. Where is the root ? policies, politics or practices which are mostly corrupt. 

Policies - what is the rational of providing schools which is governed by teachers whose salaries are not even adequate to survive his own families? why he would work with sincerity when his own survival is a question mark? Why don't we think while drafting such policies which is just around providing the bare minimum and no method of self sustenance  and every opportunities of drainage of resources?  

Politics - why do we get allured by the political parties on the eve of election with such freebies and happy accepting and in return agreeing to press the button. Why don't we ask for self governance?why we allow ourselves to be controlled by a bunch of people who have no business to get into our lives and ruin it?

Practices- why don't we raise our voice ?why should we allow a corrupt practices to take place? why do on the first instance we praise those people who have made money out of corruption ?why do we accept this social evil in first place. All those who are amassing wealth by abusing us and the system needs no mercy and must be socially boycotted.

 The answer to all questions is not so simple but not very difficult either. There is need of change at all level else the breaking news will keep coming in, remains a discussion point for some time till the next one comes in.

Being socialist is compulsive emotion in Indian democracy

Congress party is going agog about the Food security bill so much so that it could not wait for even monsoon session to begin, which is not even a fortnight away. For the bills such as women reservation and lokpal, it always countered that they need to go through the parliamentary process but didn't even  blinkered to pass the ordinance on food security. This BRAHMASTRA they were holding for the eve of elections. They find it equally potent and election certainty as MANREGA and loan waiver scheme proved to be in 2009.It doesnt matter what the country will eventually pay for this generosity!!!

The problem is the people sitting in opposition also cannot oppose this vehemently as they are also compulsive socialite. Everyone knows this 1.25 lakh crore or 65 Mt of food grain would be huge burden to the government exchequer in years to come but who will raise the voice? let the country see its dooms day, we will continue to toe the socialist line because this brings votes. Those who understands this will not stand in the voters queue and those who only understand "do time ki roti"  will hardly bother for the fiscal deficit, will have a reason to press the button of the election machine. 

Unfortunate part is ,we live in democracy where everyone has equal rights and no matter who is their leader, it's their duty to give free virtues and make their constituency continue to look ugly  and convert them to languid from laborious. By speaking my mind out, I would be perhaps bracketed as one who doesn't have to fight a election so ...can write this . But dear left, and right and centrist.....can't you stand up for the sake of the future of this country? doesn't this intrigues your mind? who is going to pay for it? no one likes poverty but there are other methods to remove poverty. Not by providing freebies, but making people skillful, providing opportunities to learn, earn and grow. These will not only give them rice but will give them chicken, meat, fish, egg, milk, fruit and whatever they want to.Am I sounding capitalist ?. It s close to 70 yrs since independence and we cannot blame the Britishers any more for killing our industries, it's we and our similar policies which is leaving us way behind the rest.

This is only going to fill up the already full pockets of FCI babus. I read that FCI is going to recruit some 11000 additional employees to rollout this plan. One thing is assured there will be 11000 lesser poorer people in this country and so will be some wealthy farmers , who will open food granaries to sell their grains and store with themselves. We already have a inefficient food distribution system on which a book can be written and still it will be incomplete. 

I hope my compulsive vote catcher pseudo socialistic leaders would have given a little bit of thought on it...how will you get this much of grain? how it is going to be distributed and who is going to bear the 1.25 l crores? 

don't forget with 4 % growth rate, our coffers are going to be emptied much faster and we will still have many other subsidies to take care....

I am not against the poor but against any freebie, why not focus to improve competitiveness of nation rather than taking a step backward. The repercussions will be too huge.