Saturday, January 09, 2010

ToI and its reporting

One knows that ToI is so not to be trusted on its news. They hang more on the sensationalism side than on the facts. But this is what the headlines read today:

"PM announces that NRIs may get voting rights"

What the??? We all know NRIs HAVE voting rights (unless of course you have given up your citizenship, in which case you are technically not an NR"I" anyways and this context doesn't address you). What the PM hopes to do by the next General Election is to try and get the NRIs to EXERCISE the voting rights they already HAVE. Duh!

So much for news reporting!

5 comments:

Umang said...

Agree with you on the reporting aspect. TOi does seem to sensationalize the news a bit to draw more readers.

I think NRIs are defined as anyone with an Indian linkage i.e. was previously Indian citizen or whose ancestors were Indians. While current NRIs (Indian citizens living abroad) are eligible to vote, the PM (IMO) was referring to NRIs who have given up citizenship but taken up PIO or OCI. I could be wrong but likely not.

DivSu said...

I am not very sure if any person would be eligible to vote in two countries. I don't think the constitution allows for non-citizens to vote. I think all that he was saying is that if you have a right to vote, you will be able to exercise it (which right now you cannot since you won't be eligible for a voters ID and so even if you travel to India you cannot vote, like I wasn't able to the first elections after I moved).

Anonymous said...

AFAIK, citizens who have given up their citizenship can vote once they get their PIO card ...with their dual citizenship once they get their reqd card..

DivSu said...

@Anonymous - Let me draw your attention to this:

http://www.mha.nic.in/pdfs/intro.pdf

A simple Google search :)

Rachna said...

You know wha, my son has a PIO card and no voting rights. And you are right, TOI does sensationalize news.

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