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The paper rekindles a three-decade-old debate in the annals of Indian anthropology / sociology which became dormant after no significant headway was made. The debate which goes by the name of "crisis in sociology" in India provides the backdrop against which the paper makes sense of current regimes of knowledge production that a doctoral candidate in India must navigate. By doing so, the paper reflects on the limitations of epistemological critiques wherein an epistemic critique stops at the corridors of an academic workplace. The paper argues that doctoral candidates in India today are cognitive workers engaged in exploitative relations of knowledge production. However, these exploitative relations are obfuscated by the postcolonial epistemological critiques that indulge in foregrounding the hegemony of the North / West. The paper proposes an infrastructural critique of knowledge that does not respond with despair to perceived transformations and crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a democratic country like India, voting has a huge role in selecting government officials and representing the citizen's opinions and how the governing body should work. However, there are many loopholes in the process that need to be resolved. A few of them are event costs, vote tampering, fake vote casting, etc. To handle the challenges, technological intervention can be a great potential in transforming the scenario. There will be no need to print ballot papers or set up polling stations--voters can vote from anywhere with internet access. Even though using the electronic mode, we have to face problems like maintenance and reliability. In the proposed method, using blockchain technology and adopting new protocols we can enable the system to be resilient to vulnerabilities and at the same time solve the purpose. This decentralized system comes to rescue and backs all the downsides of traditional voting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates the effects of encouraging the selection of local politicians in India via community consensus, as opposed to a secret ballot election. Using village-level data on candidates, elected politicians, government budgets, and workfare employment, I show that incentives for consensus elections lead to politicians who are more educated but less likely to be drawn from historically marginalized castes and increase how regressively workfare employment is targeted. These results are supported by qualitative evidence that shows that consensus elections are prone to capture by the local elite, which may reduce the need for clientelistic transfers to the non-elite. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The raised use of data innovation appears to alter both the arrangement of administrative administrations and the energy of vote based system. E-voting or Electrical democratic represents present day vote based system. Ecasting a ballot will be at itts best when followed the current legittimate and administrative structure. "Vote", give or register or elect your leaders for the democratic process. Cittizens vote for leaders to represent them and their ideas, and the leaders support the cittizens' interests (For e.g: Residents choosing their nation chiefs). Many Democratic Country, experience difficulty casting a ballot (Even in India). A portion of the issues in question are off base democratic during decisions, unpracticed staff, difficult to reach or uncertain surveying stations, and lacking democratic hardware. The new indigenous leader web based democratic framework settles this precise issue. Itt should be noticed that clients, for this sittuation, residents, make some huge memories outline during the democratic run for the voting system in that place. The objective of this research paper is to think of another arrangement, accompanies a litttle expectation to absorb information, residents should be prepared on the best way to practice their entittlement to cast a ballot on the web. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contrary to Duverger's Law, there exist multi-party systems in conjunction with simple majority single-ballot systems. At least three exceptions exist to this "law". Rae (1971) and Riker (1976; 1982) offer explanations for two of the most prominent exceptions, i.e. Canada and India. I also discuss another exception. Great Britain. In this paper, I use a simple one-dimensional spatial model to show that a multi-party system can be supported under a simple majority single-ballot system. This explanation depends on the way political parties exit the system. If parties decide sequentially whether or not to exit, a multi-party system can not be maintained. If political parties make this decision simultaneously, a multi-party system may be able to sustain itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper looks into the unrepresentative character of the existing 'first-past- the-post' (FPTP) system in India and suggests an alternative model so that our democracy can be made more representative and meaningful. The FPTP system of election results in the victory of a candidate with a minority (less than 50% of votes polled) of voles which enables the candidate who gets the most votes (need not be a majority of total votes polled) to win an election in a multi-cornered contest. This implies that only a minority of voters who have voted for the victorious candidate get any representation at all. The voters (often a majority) who voted for the defeated candidates go unrepresented. It means that they have wasted their votes. At the national level, this phenomenon leads to a disproportionality between the percentage of votes polled by political parties and the number of seats won by parties. In order to correct this drawback in the present Indian system, the Mixed Member Proportional system is suggested in the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Binaca Geetmala was a weekly countdown or hit parade radio programme that ranked Hindi film songs by order of popularity, first based on listeners' requests and later on record sales. The programme aired from 1952 until 1994 and is arguably one of the longest lasting and most influential radio programmes in the world. Drawing on a variety of sources, including listeners' diaries, correspondence from listener radio clubs and interviews with broadcasters and devoted listeners, I trace Geetmala 's four-decade 'melodious journey', charting the programme's central role in making Hindi film songs – the leading popular music in the Indian subcontinent. I make two interrelated arguments. First, I argue that through its popularity charts, Geetmala cultivated an understanding of Hindi film songs as 'the music of the common people' and made partaking in film song's so-called 'commonness' the very attraction of the programme. Here, I consider how this fascination with 'commonness', with measuring popularity, and with individuals' participation in the process, relates to the larger political culture of independent India's first decades, including the experience of universal suffrage. Second, I argue that by encouraging alertness to ever-changing popularity lists and by developing specific terminology, Geetmala effectively transformed ordinary radio listeners into discerning Hindi film-song experts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India has leaving aside the short span of 1975-76, witnessed the uninterrupted reign of democracy. The Adult franchise, impartial election. independent judiciary, multi party system are bedrock of democracy. The electorate changes the government through ballot only. The coalition government formed on either pre poll or post poll alliance loses its credential by conflicts among coalition partners. The present paper takes into account various aspects of coalition government in India and analyses the constitutional dimensions besides discussing the merits and demerits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political commentaries on elections highlight the act and outcome of suffrage. Votes are tallied and trends analyzed as pundits distill election results, post facto, into predictable storylines said to reveal the so‐called pulse of the nation, littered with clichés about popular mandates and the people's verdict. Such accounts interpret elections as a straightforward index of a "popular will" without attention to their differentiated experience and how historically disenfranchised groups navigate their complex institutional landscape. Elections are not extraordinary events that transcend the inequalities of everyday life but a time when hierarchies are asserted, contested, and fortified. This occurs through the ballot as well as through the architecture of the institution and tactical use of its routine procedures. The Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK; Liberation Panthers Party), a prominent Dalit‐led (ex‐untouchable) party in India, is a case in point. Combining ethnography from inside a political campaign and interviews with VCK candidates, party leaders, and grassroots activists, this article employs election symbols as a diagnostic to study the architecture of the electoral institution, exploring how its tools and techniques—which are neither neutral nor freely available to all—consolidate structural advantages that privilege well‐resourced players while hindering those historically excluded from political power. [democracy, elections, inequality, India, caste, Dalits] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]