My first vote.

Voted today for the first time in my life. Vote by elimination was the strategy and consequently circus artists in the BJP and JD(S) were out of the competition and the lesser(?) evil of the Congress was chosen. The experience in itself is pretty mundane. Possibly the day of counting will be more exciting as I await the result.

What's wrong?

• We claim to be a "healthy" democracy. But people like Narendra Modi and Ananth Singh keep on eating away at this health. Meanwhile the political circus in Karnataka makes a mockery of democracy.
  
• West Bengal claims to have a communist government. Not that I am taking any sides but how ironic then of CPI-M workers fighting for an SEZ in Nandigram.
• We are around 8% GDP growth rate. Our software exports are increasing. However, solutions for smaller technical challenges like roads that do not dissolve away with the first rain seem to elude us. A largely agricultural economy lies waste with farmers in almost all parts of our country impoverished and taking to suicides. When one passes through our country side it is a sorry picture of large numbers of people tending to small patches of land. Our rural economy continues to be largely inefficient, over employing and producing a lot lesser than it could.
• We want to be like the Australia when it comes to cricket. But when an out of form Dravid is dropped the whole nation screams.
  

A lot is wrong. A lot should change.

दिवाली की शुभ कामनाएं

Happy Diwali to all!