Politics: Election Commission Announces Maharashtra Assembly Election Schedule!

Chief Election Commissioner VS Sampath

The Election Commission of India (EC) on Friday, the 12^th of September 13, 2014, has announced the poll schedule for Maharashtra Assembly Elections. It is a single-phase polling on Wednesday, the 15^thOctober covering whole of Maharashtra including the Naxal affected Gadchiroli region. This means more than 80 million voters will exercise their democratic right in more than 90,000 polling booths spread across 288 constituencies of the state on a single day which reminds us of the single day polling done in the long past when the whole nation voted. With a gap of just 3 days the counting will be taken up on Sunday, the 19^th of October which is set to reveal if the opposition alliance of Mahayuti (BJP+Shiv Sena+others)  could finally end the 15-year-old rule of the Democratic Front (Congress+NCP). This will be the first major election for the new Modi Government formed on 26^th May, 2014 after BJP thundered to victory in the Lok Sabha General Elections-2014 reducing Congress to its worst ever performance in history. In Maharashtra too the Mahayuti made a clear sweep and it is eagerly awaited if the General Election anti-incumbency trend and the Modi wave would continue to impact the Maharashtra Assembly Elections. The EC also announced a single phase polling and counting for the state of Haryana on the same dates.

The EC notification will be on 20^thSeptember and the last date of filing nominations for candidates is 27^thwhile the last date for withdrawal of candidature is 1^st of October. This effectively means that the number of days for registration of new voters is greatly reduced. The electoral rolls close 10 days before the last date of filing nominations and therefore in Maharashtra new registration will be over on 17^th September. Potential voters thus have just 5 more days to register themselves. The NOTA option will be available on all EVMs and a new experiment called VVPAT (Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail) system is to be tried this time in some selected constituencies where the voters can confirm if their votes have been cast correctly. This system thus could also detect and eliminate possible election fraud or malfunction.

This Maharashtra Election has been the much awaited one both in terms of ultimate winners and announcement of dates. The ruling alliance here has a scam infested background of 15 years like their counterpart UPA alliance at the centre which was finally thrown out of power after its rule for 10 years. Analysts rate this election as a golden chance for the Mahayuti to come into power. On the flip side both alliances irrespective of their chances are still fighting for an elusive seat sharing formula. The Congress-NCP fight over seats has led to a few of their leaders and former ministers shifting loyalty by joining the opposition alliance. The ruling alliance rates their chances high sticking to the development agenda and also has several Chief Ministerial aspirants.  

The BJP-Shiv Sena bickering over seats has several basic reasons: Shiv Sena has been the main regional party in Maharashtra and so it wants to be treated like the major partner; however the results in General Elections-2014 and Maharashtra Assembly Elections-2009 show that the surging BJP had won more seats than the Sena by contesting less number of seats; Shiv Sena was considerably weakened by the formation of Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) by Raj Thackeray prior to 2009 and was almost marginalized before sort of being rescued by the BJP in 2014 riding on the Modi wave with the MNS now getting marginalized due to confused stands; so BJP wants more or at least equal number of seats; both parties have Chief Ministerial aspirants and therefore  have to have more seats than the other so that their respective aspirants could eventually   become the Chief Minister.

The EC announcements had been expected since the last week of August. Maybe due to the festive season with the biggest event of the state—the 11-day Ganesh Festival—concluding only on 8^th September or maybe due to more festivals coming up in the near future or maybe due to the political indecisiveness regarding declaration of candidates the EC perhaps had a tough time scheduling the most important event. At the moment there are still no official lists of candidates declared by any of the major political parties. Interestingly it is also speculated widely that the on-going fortnight of Pitru Paksha  when funeral rites are performed for the souls of ancestors and which is considered inauspicious for any new initiative is playing its part in confounding the indecisiveness of the political parties.

Finally, the winners would emerge before Diwali festival and if there is a clear majority the new government could even be formed before the big festival of lights. In all eventuality this Diwali is all set to illuminate a whole lot of people.

Credit Card Frauds: A Real Close Shave!

Only the other day we were discussing with a few bankers about the fact that online frauds or crimes are still very low in India compared to advanced countries. We justified this with another fact that millions of Indians are still ignorant or have no online presence. And just the next day I had a close shave from a potentially serious credit card fraud. We have heard a lot about card protection in terms of safeguarding against phishing or seemingly genuine emails asking for personal information, dubious text messages, stolen or lost cards, taking care while shopping or at the ATM machine, skimming and so on. But to find out what exactly defines my experience I had to surf the net for a while finally resting on a term ‘Tele Phishing’. 

During a very busy day in office I received a call from a lady who identified herself as a bank executive of the private bank with which I had multiple and most frequently used credit card accounts. As I had been used to getting such calls from very similar sounding lady executives I took the call casually while going on with my work. The lady informed me that as per the RBI guidelines the bank had decided to issue a new card replacing my multiple accounts and the new card had a host of benefits with no payment liabilities. 

I had three weak points at that point of time: 1. I was attending the call in a casual way not disturbing my office work; 2. I did not suspect her identity as a bank executive while noticing that she had called me from a mobile number, and 3. I in fact wanted a single account since I was using only one particular credit card all the while and did not need the other cards. And the smart lady capitalized. 

I started giving all information as she wanted including date of birth, card number and the three-digit CVV (Card Verification Value) number on the back of the card. The executive informed me that there will be such amount of reward points and a onetime payment that would be reflected in the statement but would be adjusted against the reward points. One part of the reward points would be paid by the bank in cash. I was also told that a business firm would call me for my confirmation so that the gifts could be couriered to my home address. Indeed, the supposed business firm called immediately and gave the list of my gifts like T-shirt, credit card pouch, wrist watch and so on. Then the lady called me again that the bank has sent me a text message containing a six-digit number the last three digits of which would be the CVV of my new card. I saw the private bank name in the sender ID of the text message and so assured read out the number to her. 

Maybe the lady executive and her accomplice had one weakness at this point—they were becoming too greedy. 

She called again asking for my second credit card details. I was piqued at that time and asked her how many cards were going be issued since she earlier told me that one single account would replace all others. She quickly told me that two cards were being issued. I was not convinced, but at that time the office peon came in with a bunch of papers for signature and so I went on with her while doing my work. The same process was repeated including the bank text message containing the second six-digit number. 

Suddenly I developed cold feet realizing that I had given all crucial information of my cards. Immediately I checked the text messages sent by my bank and to my horror I found that those contained OTP (One Time Password) numbers which are generated during online transactions. 

Fearing that transaction alerts amounting to God-knows-what figures might come any time I panicked and with trembling hand dialed the bank customer helpline. Luckily I got to speak to a customer service executive immediately. I asked him if the bank was going to issue new cards rushing through my experience. The executive was not sure and so I immediately requested him to block all my cards and not entertain any transaction that could come any moment. 

I got one more text message from the bank containing another OTP. The smart lady called up next requesting me to tell her the number informing me that the earlier number was invalid. I wanted to make sure one final time. I asked her ‘Where are you calling from?’

‘From …. bank’.  She replied, a little surprised.

‘Prove that you belong to the …..  bank.’ She fell silent.

‘Prove or I’m giving your number to the police right now.’ The line was cut instantly. 

I think credit card protection is hardly enough even now. The banks should adopt preventive measures, issue regular notifications and should announce that their executives will call customers always from authorized office landlines and not mobiles. In my experience real executives did call from mobiles at times. 

I had a close shave. You should learn from this and prevent such frauds. Be ready anytime to thwart tele phishing or any other attempts to fool you. The numbers that were used in this fraud are, 08459490706 for the bank executive and 08130486175 for the trader. Seem to be purely Indian and this means fraudsters are trying to make it big in India now. Beware!

Ragini Chakravarty Gets Business Express Kala-Shree Puraskar For Music!

Reputed classical vocalist from Assam, Ragini Chakravarty has been conferred with the Maharashtra state level Kala-Shree Puraskar in a dignified ceremony held on Thursday, the 21st of August, 2014 in Sangli, Western Maharashtra. Shree Foundation Trust maintained by the Business Express group of Marathi newspapers and periodicals has been giving these annual awards for the last 19 years in different fields of Arts, Academic, Cooperative sector, Business, Administration—Society and Social activism. Ragini Chakravarty was chosen for the award in the Arts (Kala) category for her contribution to music and for her efforts to promote music in Assam and Maharashtra. The award was formally presented to Ragini by the Chief Guest of the ceremony, Dr. Ved Prakash Mishra, Chairman of Medical Council of India. The ceremony was presided over by eminent economist Dr. J F Patil. Seva Shree Awards were also presented to officials/officers/activists from various fields of activity for distinguished service and work. 
 

Talking to media persons Ragini thanked the organizers for selecting her for this great honor and for the exemplary hospitality offered to her. She said that being from the far north eastern region performing and working for music based in Mumbai the Award was of great significance and it had given her tremendous inspiration to surge ahead in the pursuit of music. Thanking all music lovers of Maharashtra Ragini said that this wonderful state has always been very appreciative of classical music and that she had got tremendous response in all her concerts across Maharashtra. 

Earlier, Ragini  Chakravarty regaled a packed auditorium with her light classical compositions and Bhajans.