Normal And Abnormal

The successive state governments talk loudly during their terms about  different developmental projects in Kerala. Unfortunately it ends in their talks. There is no visible outcome when they depart on completion of the five year term. The first step to be taken for the development of the state is necessary infrastructure. Transportation is the prime among the infrastructure. Let us find some 'commendable' efforts by our political parties in development of infrastructure in our state.  We all have seen how these proposals were shelved  faster than these were proposed. Some of us may remember about a proposal for an express highway from Thiruvananthapuram to Kasergod some years back.  Almost all political parties did their best to get the proposal scrapped. One more old story. Doubling of 114 km railway track between Ernakulam and Kayamkulam via Kottayam was started about three decades ago. The work from Ernakulam to Mulanthuruthy was completed many years ago. The wo...

When ever we Indians do something big our top brass come to the centre stage and make a big announcement of our achievement to the world. We are the first or one of the top three or so to do it is normally appended to it. Surprisingly when Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs ) introduced in India no one proclaimed with pride that we are one of the four countries using EVMs in elections nation wide. The other three are Brazil, Estonia and Venezuela. Countries like Canada, USA, Peru and Argentina are using this in some areas. Belgium, France, Netherlands, Germany, Paraguay and Japan have scrapped it after using for sometime. Japan, one of the leading manufacturers of electronic goods in the world, supplies EVMs to India but they prefer paper ballots. All these countries and rest of the large number of countries who do not use EVMs force us to reconsider the reliability of these  machines. We are using EVMs in India for quite sometime. However, in the recent past, voices raised from s...

We Indians have heard about democracy a lot but have never experienced it. We have such amount of Political Stalwarts who can speak about democracy for hours or even days together. We also have sociologists and social reformers who can write thousands of pages about this Indian myth. Since the formation of our great chain of history into one nation under the name India we hear this beautiful word during every general election. It is like the glorious Angel with beautiful wings. A pure one coming from God with full of love and compassion. The grandma and the mother have told all about them but none of us have ever seen an Angel! Democracy too is something like this. A great man once said that government of the people, by the people and for the people; and that is democracy. What we have in India is government of the politicians, by the politicians and for the politicians. If we fail to understand the imminent danger these politicians together will swallow us. We cannot wait for anoth...

A huge number of allegations like petrol price, currency ban, unemployment, farmers suicide, price rise, corruption all around etc are levelled against the outgoing government by opposition parties jointly and individually with their own evidence during the election campaign. Despite this, if the ruling party wins again, the common man may understand with their common sense that either the whole allegations are wrong or these have no direct impact to the common man. The third option would be that these allegations have never reached them. In all these three cases it is the opposition parties who become liable to answer. In similar circumstances the result of the election in a developed country would be different from that of ours. Leave alone foreign countries, even in our own country, the result in two different states shall be different. Therefore, the conventional mode of campaign is a sheer waste. What they say, under the present condition of our country, hardly reach ten percent...

Reliable data could not be found about the average power outages per day in Kerala. However every domestic consumer knows that power outages are usual and a number of times almost every day. Duration of each cut may last from a few minutes to a few hours. Over and above these each local edition of news paper carries advance information about power disruption for a longer duration in different areas. Normally these interruptions are from 9.00 am to 5.00 pm. This is not only at one place but at many locations throughout the state almost every day. It is not known whether generation is brought down correspondingly. If not, the electricity board must be loosing huge sum for every power cut. According to available information the following countries are most energy efficient in the world. Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, France, Denmark, Austria, Spain, Columbia, New Zealand and Uruguay are the top ten countries recorded in 2018. It is understood that people do not use  any alternative s...

The ongoing Lok sabha election is  for 543 seats. Any party contesting in the election must secure a minimum seats of 272 to have simple majority. Parties who have fielded at least these number of candidates have a goal of ruling the country; subject to winning of all the candidates. There are parties who have made coalition with other parties may field lesser number of candidates; however, the parties together in the coalition group will field candidates above this magical figure. Surprisingly, there also parties who have no coalition arrangements with any parties have fielded small number of candidates much below the minimum majority number. What for they do it? There can be two reasons. 1. To have recognition as a national party 2. To do horse trading after the election, depending upon the seats of other major parties . The conditions laid down by the Election Commission for recognition as a national party are: 1. Secure at least 6% of the valid votes in an Assembly or Lok S...

It makes hue and cry everywhere when it happens once in a blue moon; that is Mankading! Last victim is Ashwin. He was accused by all around. The cricket law 41.16 states that: "If the non-striker is out of his/her ground from the moment the ball comes into play to the instant when the bowler would normally have been expected to release the ball, the bowler is permitted to attempt to run him/her out." When the law is so clear that there is no avenues left to save the offender other than undergoing the prescribed punishment, what is to discuss too much on this. All those who have tears for Jos Butler can approach the MCC and scrap the law or amend it the way they want. However, when the law is in the book, it is to be honoured. No exception for gentle men. When gentle man commit offence he can not be left unpunished. Otherwise, the sympathisers jointly try to define the gentlemen who are exempted from Mankading. I wish to recommend that the best Mankader of the year trophy s...