24th April

The Affluent Society

The article talks about the increasing number of millionaires entering the politics. This trend has its pros and cons. But the election funding system should be more transparent and reformed in order to prevent these millionaires from using our polity as money making machine.

With 193 crorepatis out of 1715 candidates in the first phase of LS elections, it, obviously, raises concerns. However, Indian polity has never been made up of poorest of the poor with average wealth of an MP being Rs 1.6 crore which is comparable to the wealth of urban middle class. Also a huge part of it might constitute of real estate properties inherited which have shot up in valuation many fold. However, these millionaires are not all from cities. They come from even the extremely poorest parts of the country. What has to be seen is whether it is mere coincidence that there are so many millionaires in our electoral politics or they have entered the arena with the intention of minting more money. It is important to note that elections in India are costly affair and not all political parties have money to fund the campaigns. So they invite candidates who can fund these campaigns. Even auctioning tickets is an increasing trend these days. All these invites a change in the way elections are funded. One way is to explore state funding of election campaigns but it will only invite additional load to the exchequer and an incentive for people to get into politics to access these funds only. Another way is to check each and every funding received by each and every political party and establish accountability. Using technology and mass media techniques to reach out more people would be more cost efficient.

Thus, curbing expenses and providing greater transparency in funding is the only way out to prevent electoral process from being favorable only to rich.

US and its Neighbours

The article talks about the change that US has been observing as their relationships with many of the neighbours taking a paradigm shift after the President Obama took over.

While it started with Russia and Iran, the US President has moved closer home to make amends with Cuba and Venezuela. In the recently concluded summit in Trinidad, Obama extended a hand to his counterparts in the region. Cuba is facing trade and travel embargo since J F Kennedy in 1962 and Venezuela, whose democratically elected leader, Hugo Chavez, acts like a dictator, holds no respect for US and even called Obama’s predecessor as devil. But with Obama the things are different and these countries seem positive about the relationships with US now. The travel and remittance restrictions have been lifted while the trade embargo stays. It is even naïve to expect lifting up of trade embargo at this stage when Obama is facing little resistance from within US itself with respect to his goodwill gestures so far. But he is on the right track and with present circumstances it is better for US to go for pursuance to get support rather then punishing these countries.

The way Obama has handled the things so far, reinforces his pre-election commitments to bring the change. Now it is up to Russia, Iran, Cuba and Venezuela to take the cue.