NOTA: A Winning Cause

In the context of Indian general elections 2014:

What is NOTA:

The short-form stands for a default option of “None Of The Above”, as part of voting choice.

It means that, a voter has a valid choice of rejecting all contesting candidates and explicitly calling out that, she/he doesn’t like to choose anyone from the above list of candidates.

What is the big deal about NOTA:

Choosing to vote for NOTA indicates that a voter has not liked any of the candidates contesting and they are not worthy of her/his vote.

As NOTA counts increase, it is a direct and clear signal that all the candidates from national/local parties/Independents are non-worthy to be an MP/MLA from a given constituency.

In aggregation, this also gives a good signal to large parties that, they will have to pick better candidates to represent them in a constituency.

If the NOTA votes become significant, the EC or the Supreme court could define better and more affirmative actions. Eg: re-election in that constituency when count(NOTA) > Winning candidate by current norms.

Why is NOTA a winning cause:

As a voter, if we don’t have any worthy candidate, registering our identification of  “all bad candidates”, is through voting for NOTA.

Assuming that, there are ~20 constituencies all over India, where NOTA beats the winning candidate, it becomes clear that the voters in those constituencies rejected all candidates very numerically and clearly.

There are no other interpretations for this pattern of voting.  

There is good reason to believe that, this pattern is one and only best way to inform India/world that, parties choose bad candidates in places for reasons known only to them.

Again like said above, this is the best path to EC or Supreme court swinging into action and defining more actionable outcome to NOTA votes in coming elections.

Hence I am of the belief that NOTA is a winning cause for this democracy.

Cooking balanced proposals and policies in real life ..

Often I used to wonder why policies,  govt orders or decisions at various levels fail miserably or expose easy ways to game those very policies. Eg: Right from a policy around allowing employees to work from home to law around women protection in a marriage. As some of you may know and agree the DV act in India has been  of certain help to sections of society but has been hotly debated for it abuse.

My theory has a large Indian context but this may apply to other geo's also. In India many goverment policies or even proposals in other set-ups (Private Orgs) is a response or a reaction to a situation. When something bad or glaring happens, people drop everything and try and come-up with a solution/proposal with a mind occupied by the effect of recency and bad incidents that have made them think, in the very 1st place for a policy.

Eg: If there was were a series of gruesome domestic violence incidents reported in media or say if there were a series of fire accidents in a public transport system in a particular state in India.   

The policy makers quickly leave out the conditions or social strata as to where the DV cases are reported, region, circumstances. They generalize a law to address the incidents that could have had a major public bearing and come up with an all India law. Policy makers would not consider the other side or the plight of other parties, while forming this law. Assume in this case, they never see the side of how an urban male can be abused if the law is so one-sided etc., the same thing can be argued about knee jerk reaction a govt order would have on transport players, when there are a couple of incidents of accidents or fire in a bus. 

In this section, I would like to take a shot at possibly coming up with a slightly better paradigm of making policies and proposals to a problem.

Once we have a problem or symptom in hand that needs a policy or solution

1. Understand the segments where the problem is seen incessantly. (Needs a deep understanding of Segments) 
2. Trace the divergence of these numbers in other areas where this policy could apply
3. Also understand the evolution or frequency at which this symptom is being reported
4. Keeping these variables in mind, to formulate a rule to fight the anomaly

{ this is where the important ones to start }    

5. Wear the black hat and understand, how all, this rule be exploited by the "protected" parties for whom the policy is being brought in
6. Could this policy have exceptions  in certain conditions eg: some economic conditions, expiry of being able to exercise this rule when the marriage is certain number of years old
7. Should this whole rule need a review after certain number of years. This is about putting an mandatory expiry date to review the policy


All policies that are well rounded have better chance of success and greater value to societies using them. Hence, I guess it is time for our policies in govt, at work and home be more well rounded than being reactive.

{rana's thoughts on saturday morning 1st March 2014}