ADR and NEW, that  leads a nationwide campaign comprising more than 1200 NGOs and other citizen-led organisation mapped the assets of  MPs recontesting the parliamentary elections by comparing the affidavits they filed before the Election Commission of India in 2004 and 2009.

The revelations to say the least are stunning. The maxiumum per cent increase in assets among the analysed MPs has been 9137 % for Mohammed Tahir of BSP. This was followed by BJP ‘ s C H Vijaya Shankar of Karnataka (6526.23 %), CPM ‘ s Susmita Bauri from West Bengal (3151.52 %), BJ ‘ s Suresh Ganpatrao Waghmare from Maharashtra (2159.64 %) and SP ‘ s Akshay Pratap Singh Gopalji from Uttar Pradesh (1841.06 %). Congress MP Sachin Pilot ‘ s assets saw an appreciation of 1746 %.

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Satyagraha without constructive work is like a sentence without a verb: Ram Manohar Lohya (Opening quote in Samajwadi Party ‘ s official website)

Reason 3: It ‘ s your choise How the candidates stand on the issues that matter to you

As time changes technology changes, Samajwadi Party believes in staying upto date with the technology and using it for the betterment. So they have now redesigned their website . It looks cool.

Time Travel

Who are the Guilty?
(Report of a joint inquiry into the causes and impact of the riots in Delhi from 31 October to 10 November 1984)

Google has partnered with Hindustan Times and a number of non-profit groups to unveil an online resource for voters who wish to excercise their franchise intelligently. A mashup of google maps and development data from the Lok Sabha constituencies the site also includes links to election news, blogs and quotes.

You would also be able to view whether the winning candidate in any given constituency has a criminal record, whether he/she has a PAN card and their Parliament attendance record and their assets.  The report card of every MP is a handy tool for anyone who would like to pose questions to politicians who seeks re-election from your constituency.

It will also allow voters confirm their registration status, find their polling location, view their constituency on a map.

Google has run similar initiatives in the past in countries like the US and Australia..

The poll arena is a fatal attraction especially for the fading stars. They behave as the strobelight is their birthright. And they will go any length to perpetuate the mythology. For the public it adds to glitz of the election spectacle. They might view a politician with distrust, but they turn dizzy once they spot a star. We know that they live in an entirely different world and our lives are dull by comparison.

Now I would not certainly like to compare Shashi Tharoor with other A-listers who have entered the poll fray from the world of film and cricket. People who love to move in elite-socialite-cocktail circuits and seek to perpetuate their halo through soun bytes. He ‘ s certainly several notches above Sanjay Dutts and Shatrughan Sinhas if you look at  the contributions he has made to India ‘ s polity as an author and a UN diplomat.

Tharoor flaunts an Oxford English accent and will qualify as a brand consultant for the so called ‘ New India ‘ . His views on economy will not be different that any educated neo-liberal hack and his stance on certain environment issues have left green activists in Kerala red-faced.

But no once can accuse him of being a rabid communalist just because he wrote an article in some Israeli journal on India ‘ s envy towards the Zionist nation. It ‘ s true that the article sounds apologetic in parts, but it reads more like a diplomat-sociologist ‘ s analysis why India wouldn ‘ t strike Pakistan. It ‘ s a journalistic opinion piece rather than a rabid rant.