Kyra is a organization for theatrical arts like the Shankarnag Ranga Mandira. The difference being it is a cusine too with a Bar attached.
The panelists for the debate were
1. Prof Rajeev Gowda,
2. Mr. V Ravichandar,
3. Mr. Harish Bijoor,
4. Capt Gopinath (to be confirmed)
5. Ajit Saldhana (Moderator)
Capt Gopinath could not finish his NDTV interview in time to attend. All the others were present. It was an excellent meeting with the debate being conducted by Mr. Ajit Saldhana and chaired by the IIM prof extremely professionally.
1. Relevance of Independent candidates.
The law permits any body to contest as an Independent candidate. They are not aligned with any political party. In any elections rhetoric like Comparing Independent candidates with Opportunist jokers, is quite common. However there is a theory which would rather imagine an Independent Candidate as a CEO of a company, with his own ideology. This of course was not agreed to as totally correct in governance. Prof Rajiv Gowda seemed to be not excited with the CEO idea.
In Party system the lacuna is mainly in selection of candidates. There is hunger for power. The service to people culture is missing. Unless this rhetoric disappears we have no solution in sight. Candidate should align to ideology even though he is not upto the mark merit wise.
2. Neither Good for Votes or Notes.
The panelists felt that Nandan Neelekani is unduly shy and need not be so as he has a large following amongst the educated literate population. With the voting figures crossing 50 and even 60% educated successful CEOs like him stand a good chance.
3. Annual Reviews
Harish felt that all elected representatives do reply to queries. It is a process of constituency taking more interest in what their rep is doing.
4. Dynamic On going programme apart from the strident sometimes Hysterical TV programme. There should balanced conveyance of programme delivery to the public may be through well posted web media too.
5. The people who do not vote are really being hypocritical. This is one of the main causes of failure of Democracy. Funding is one of the main stumbling blocks of the Indian Democracy. The panelists felt that the USA type transparent public funding is an answer to overcome corruption. Interestingly the high registration tax seems to be fueling black money creation amongst other causes. The ridiculously low permissible expense limit of a candidate is the fore runner of black transactions.
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Keep Up the Fight, Else Nothing Will Happen
Transparent public funding is an answer to overcome corruption
For any improvement or change, citizens are the key in a democracy, especially our over-liberal form of democarcy not found anywhere else & with no parallel. Nothing will change unless we keep fighting for the better systems.
Singapore & China (to some degree), are perhaps the only examples where autocratic systems have been successful in bringing about some degree of transparency with far reaching changes & economically improving the people - strange aberrations, but true.
In our system, the political class, mandated legitimately by winning elections, remains unquestionable & out of the ambit of even law, in some cases, whilst, we as citizens garland them upteem times with hopes for something to happen to improve our lots - this is just plain day-dreaming as the political class is generally designed to win elections based on vote-banks from the poorer sections & hence, avoid transparent systems wherever & whenever possible since they can, in most cases, get away with closed types of funding, especially in the villages since these are the same "funds" that win them elections.
The real problem is that we have around us very large segments of poor that need attention & education. Till such time that they are all knowledgeable, our fight will seem half-hearted as the educated are but a very small percentage of the general public.
Thank you for the report
Anatharam Sir, thank you so much for the detailed report. With your elaborate reports from each event you attend, you set an example for all members here.