If you have friends, you would by now have received some ten thousand forwards on this elusive little section in the People’s Representation Act – a fabled 49-O. Here’s what it says.

49-O. Elector deciding not to vote.-If an elector, after his electoral roll number has been duly entered in the register of voters in Form-17A and has put his signature or thumb impression thereon as required under sub-rule (1) of rule 49L, decided not to record his vote, a remark to this effect shall be made against the said entry in Form 17A by the presiding officer and the signature or thumb impression of the elector shall be obtained against such remark.

Various people have been going ga-ga over this. Apparently it lets them express some sort of political statement about how they find all the politicians completely undeserving of their vote. Well, fair enough.

In the few times that I have voted in any election, I’ve always felt I was voting for the lesser evil. It wasn’t because the candidate has me in raptures with their promises, or because I was dazzled by my admiration for them. You can hate politicians all you like, but they are necessary. If you want to go about exercising this 49-O business, you might as well say, “Sure, give me the President’s rule”. Which is a bigger mockery of democracy than than having goons in the parliament. You really want a politician who understands you? Go stand for an election.

As far as I know, even if the majority opts for 49-O, votes that are tendered are counted, and winners are announced accordingly. So in effect, you are giving up your right to vote for the lesser evil. (Yes, the counter argument is that there could be equal evils – but that sort of symmetry is rare.)

So that money – that river of money that was spent on an election, could instead be used for something else, or at the very least, to minimize public debt. Before we get all orgasmic about 49-O, we need to consider what happens when we don’t positively assert our votes. Sure, the semantics of it suggest that opting for 49-O means you are making a choice, but what it actually means is that you are giving up your right and abstaining. You are fence-sitting. And your fence-sitting, which otherwise is nobody else’s business, costs the country a lot of money.

You are better off trying to pressurizing an existing government into action, rather than prevent government formation in the first place. You can’t choose? Very well, screw democracy. We’ll just get a dictator. Saves us money spent on elections.

Bangladeshi blogger and journalist Tasneem Khalil has been arrested by the joint forces tonight. One of his colleagues (also a renowned blogger) broke the news requesting anonymity. They are afraid to speak out. His whereabouts are currently unknown.

Tasneem Khalil (26) is an editorial assistant of the Daily Star , a popular news daily in Bangladesh. He is also the representative of CNN and Human Rights Watch in Bangladesh. His recent articles concentrated on the extra judicial killings in Bangladesh by the joint forces and other human rights issues. After the declaration of the state of emergency in January 11, it is apparent that army is behind the Care taker (interim) Government in Bangladesh. There is an emergency act in place in the country curtailing civil rights which gives power to the authority to arrest any person without conviction. He was called in for questioning by military intelligence last week.

I think to a certain extent in India, it’s so easy for us to be cynical about blogs. Be dismissive. Because there’s a relatively greater degree of freedom of the press. But if you look closely at countries where press freedom is severely curtailed, blogs offer so much freedom to journalists to express and articulate opinions, which wouldn’t otherwise be published by the press. That aside, the interim government also appears to have poor PR skills. In the last three weeks, an ex-prime minister (who has better PR skills) isn’t initially allowed back into the country and now a journalist is arrested. Not to mention, election dates that are nowhere in sight.

Update – He’s no longer in custody. Yay!

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In a bid to curb cases of women getting duped or harassed in marriages to NRIs, the government is considering a proposal to make it mandatory for the husband’s passport number to be stamped on the wife’s passport.

The proposal has been made by the ministry of women and child development in the wake of a rise in complaints about women getting abandoned, harassed or cheated by their NRI husbands.

I am puzzled about why we choose to only stamp the women’s passports. Why not have a little ritual in the Regional Passport Office where the man and women together stamp each other’s passports? If you really want to ensure that men are tied to their women – it’s their passports that really need to be stamped no? For equality’s sake – we’ll do the same to women.

Actually, I have a better suggestion. Why don’t we just make it mandatory for women to be tattooed with husband’s name, address, passport number as they leave the country? So much more permanent. In fact, tattoo it across their foreheads.

Wtf.

If Indian Railways has its way then soon idlis and dosas will be on their way out from the railway cuisine. The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Limited (IRCTC ) is planning to introduce a new system to create uniformity in its catering service across the country.

As per the plan only 21 approved food items will be served on trains – a move that South Indian rail passengers feel is in bad taste.

Never mind the polemics of choosing North Indian food over South Indian food. But this move to have a uniform menu is baffling. For starters, it’s not like the Indian Railways has a central kitchen. With local kitchens running the show – why exactly can’t the menu be varied?

Here’s the other deal. Having uniform prices is just plain strange. Price has to vary given location and competition right outside the station. Why would anyone pay 22 rupees for a “burger” in Palakkad station, when right outside you have piping hot dosas for 11 rupees? And why would the Indian Railways sell food for half the price of Haldiram’s at the Delhi Station?

But most of all, why is the Government in the business of hospitality and cuisine?

Women civil servants in India have expressed shock at new appraisal rules which require them to reveal details of their menstrual cycles. Under the new nationwide requirements, female officials also have to say when they last sought maternity leave….

Women officers must write down their “detailed menstrual history and history of LMP [last menstrual period] including date of last confinement [maternity leave],” the form says.

Wtf! What’s next? Similar questions at the immigration counter? I suddenly am divinely glad I didn’t follow all the suggestions for applying to the Indian Civil Service. You know what? Even Orwell couldn’t have come up with this!

A single e-mail between the DCP in charge of the Enforcement Branch and the California-based company will now nail such persons.

Following a meeting between representatives of the site and the Enforcement Directorate last month, the Mumbai Police and Orkut have entered into an agreement to seal such cooperation in matters of objectionable material on the web.

Trouble is, that many proxies don’t solve the problem. You cannot access gmail or orkut on many of these services. There are a few like AvoidLimit that may allow access, but the waiting time is likely to fizzle out your hatered.

There are issues that Orkut has. People get stalked. But frankly, please don’t be foolish enough to go about publishing your phone number on a public profile. You’re not asking for it, but a large number of human beings are bored and perverts. As for people creating fake profiles in other people’s names – the internet has a memory for both the fake profile, and the denial. If you ignore it long enough, people will find something else to do. I understand that cyber crimes can be very serious. But we still don’t have a concrete definition of what constitutes a cyber crime. And who exactly is to tell us what “objectionable content” is? If it’s wrong to hate Shivaji, I demand that anyone hating Kannagi be labeled a criminal too. In fact, I demand that anyone hating anything remotely Tamil be tracked down and sent a year’s supply of bad Tamil movies as punishment.

This is the first step. You may not hate anything that the government wants you to love. But tomorrow, it’ll be for some other reason. Maybe they’ll begin by saying that since sodomy is illegal, any homosexual man posting on Orkut will be tracked down. Then, they’ll tell you they’re at your doorstep because you dared to say that Pasta is better than Dal. (Actually, given our current Italian flavour in the government – that might take an election.).

Update – Google has a response. Maybe they should change their tag line to “Don’t do Evil. Just be Ambiguous.”.

Google has very high standards for user privacy and a clear privacy policy. When dealing with requests from authorities, we are very careful to balance the interests of our users while still being as cooperative in the investigation and prosecution of crimes as possible.
What is important to note is that this new reporting tool does not affect the way we treat users’ data – it only enables a faster, direct communication. Authorities will still be required to follow an appropriate legal process in order to get user-identifying information.

What exactly is “legal process” in this case? A bad case of police indigestion?

Here’s the link to the offending video (Not Safe For Work). At a personal level, it doesn’t quite appeal to either my sense of humour or raunch, however, I see no reason for it not to exist. If people get so touchy, I wonder if we’ll ever see the likes of The Daily Show in India. Though, I have to admit that the Prem Taneja show on NDTV with all the puppets always provides a good laugh.

PS – I stand corrected, the comments on the YouTube page are even more amusing. Threats to lynch the chap, asking him about his female relatives, telling him that the government will punish him, bodily threats – no end to it really. Here’s the deal, whatever happened to Gandhigiri?