The Election Commission of India (ECI) has been consistently claiming that its Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) are unique and that tampering is not feasible under real election conditions with its security protocol and administrative safeguards in place. Notwithstanding the ECI’s claims, at various points in time, the entire spectrum of political parties in India [including BJP and Congress] have expressed their reservations about the integrity of its EVMs. There have also been demands to revert to paper ballots. Confidence in the integrity of EVMs is important for voters to trust the outcomes of elections. The ECI cannot allow this confidence to be eroded. It is true that Indian EVMs cannot be hacked because they are not connected to any network and their software is ‘burnt’ into the CPU and cannot be rewritten after manufacture. But what if dishonest insiders and criminals get physical access to the EVMs and replace the EVM’s non-hackable CPU with a look-alike but hackable CPU that can be programmed to count votes dishonestly together with an embedded Bluetooth device that allows it to be remote controlled? All the features and safeguards relied on by the ECI can be easily negated by insider fraud for which there is scope at three stages: (1) at the EVMs manufacturing stage, (2) at the district level, during the long non-election period, when the EVMs are stored in archaic warehouses in multiple locations with inadequate security systems, and (3)at the stage of ‘first level checks’ prior to an election when the EVMs are serviced by authorised technicians from the EVM manufacturers.  The threats are real but luckily, the remedies are simple and effective: (1) use of Authentication Units before the polls to weed out counterfeit/tampered EVMs, and (2) effective use of Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) system at the time of counting to guard against EVM tampering or malfunction. Both are essential. But the ECI has dragged its feet since 2006 in procuring Authentication Units, and has prescribed a minuscule sample of one EVM per Assembly Constituency for hand-counting of VVPAT slips which is grossly inadequate, statistically unsound, and nearly as bad as not implementing VVPAT at all.  In this Policy Watch, K. Ashok Vardhan Shetty, a former Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer, examines the vulnerabilities of EVMs in the light of the ECI’s claims thereof, the adequacy of its security protocol and administrative safeguards, and the risks due to the perfunctory implementation of VVPAT systems as done in the recent Assembly Elections. He provides several practical administrative and technical suggestions to make Indian EVMs tamper-proof. His interest in this matter is strictly apolitical and nothing more than preserving the integrity of India’s electoral process and enhancing its credibility in the eyes of political parties and voters. Also by the Author: Policy Watch No. 7: Shetty, K.A.V. 2018 . Winning Voter Confidence: Fixing India’s Faulty VVPAT-based Audit of EVMs , The Hindu Centre for Politics and Public Policy, November 27. Policy Watch No. 9: Shetty, K.A.V. 2019 . Can the Ten per cent Quota for Economically Weaker Sections Survive Judicial Scrutiny? , The Hindu Centre for Politics and Public Policy, March 6.  [PDF 1.19 MB] 

The Election Commission of India (ECI) has been consistently claiming that its Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) are unique and that tampering is not

The political exclusion of Rohingya Muslims in post-colonial Burma and the waves of violence against them in the form of a state-sponsored campaign of massacre, rape and arson is now widely seen as ethnic cleansing and as crimes against humanity. It has resulted in a million Rohingyas fleeing to other countries, mostly Bangladesh. While Bangladesh struggles to deal with the crisis, the South Asian power, India, is not allowing in all those who seek entry, plans to forcibly repatriate those who are already in the country, and is not providing sufficient relief to them. This report analyses India's policy response to the Rohingya crisis juxtaposing its political and humanitarian aspects, examines different steps taken by the government to project the Rohingyas as a ‘threat to India’s national security’, and looks at the response offering an explanation about the underlying politics of humanitarianism. This is an attempt to provide a theoretically grounded explanation using a discursive analysis of the speeches, acts by the governing elite, the parliamentary debates/questions on the issue, circulars and ordinances passed that call for deportation, and other strict measures. The Indian state’s response with the ‘refugee-centric’ desired responses and its own response to other refugee groups in the country has also been analysed.   The report lays bare how the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government’s approach towards refugees is in keeping with its Hindu nationalist agenda, with religion dictating state policy. Feeding into the global Islamophobia industry, religious majoritarianism is gaining momentum in India under the current government; the Indian state is using the Muslim identity of the Rohingyas to project them as ‘terrorists’: it has taken extreme measures through bureaucratic procedures, surveillance, and border control, even resorting to violence against the Rohingyas seeking refuge. The report also shows how the Rohingyas — mostly living in ramshackle shacks in semi-urban ghettoes in Delhi, Jammu, Haryana, Rajasthan, and other places, have been denied even basic public goods. This report further explains how India pursues its strategic interests by offering developmental aid in Rakhine and some meagre assistance to the refugees in Bangladesh while finalising plans to forcibly repatriate the few thousand Rohingyas from the country.   [PDF 5.14 MB]

Nearly 60 years after it was passed, the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) remains a piece of legislation that evokes sharp responses. At the

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Farm loan waivers have always evoked strong emotions. The latest instance is from the southern State, Karnataka, where the new ruling coalition announ

The ninety-one year old Dr. H.V. Hande, former Health Minister, Tamil Nadu, is a political leader who has seen the late former Chief Minister,

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Though quantitative evidence suggests that women are more likely to suffer from physical pain than men, little is known about their lived experiences. Nor are the processes and mechanisms through which social determinants of health cause pain well investigated or documented in India. In this Policy Report, Living with Pain: Women’s Everyday Lives and Health in Rural Bihar, Kanika Sharma discusses findings from qualitative fieldwork in rural Bihar, focusing on causes and consequences of pain among women agricultural workers, the group most vulnerable to physical pain. Pain, especially back pain, was found to be overwhelmingly common. The respondents embedded pain within the larger context of adverse health experiences throughout the life course. In addition, the backbreaking nature of women’s household and paid work, lack of protective nutrition and rest, and pervasive domestic violence emerged as important contributors to pain. The overall healthcare system was found to be largely ineffective. Informal private health providers, while accessible, were likely to be harmful. Neglect and mistreatment were common at the government health facilities, making women’s medical encounters disempowering. The Report outlines a few potential policy approaches, and ends with a hope that pain among women would become more central to discussions on gender and health in India.[PDF 5.11 MB]

Yashwant Sinha, former Union Minister for Finance and Union Minister for External Affairs was a prominent member of Atal Behari Vajpayee’s Bhar