TV serials peddling govt schemes? EC wants political content vetted

Election officials in Maharashtra directed producers of television serials Bhabhiji Ghar Par Hai and Tujhse Hai Raabta to remove content that was deemed to benefit prospects of a political party.

Business Standard : Election officials in Maharashtra have asked production houses of two Hindi TV serials accused of espousing the BJP-led government's schemes to get 'politically influential' content vetted with them before it is telecast.

The content telecast was a clear violation of the model election code, an official said.

Maharashtra's additional chief electoral officer Dilip Shinde, in an order issued on Monday said, "The production houses should get politically influential content checked from election officials before using it in their serials."

The Congress had taken objection to characters in the two TV serials praising government schemes like Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana, Swacch Bharat Abhiyan and Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana. The two production houses had subsequently replied to the notice

"Going by the content aired, it is evident that it is a violation of model code of conduct, he said. "We have asked the production houses to remove the content from the serials immediately," he added.

Shinde said the explanation from producers of the two serials affirms the poll officials' opinion that the content aired intends to influence "one political party".

Election officials in Maharashtra directed producers of television serials Bhabhiji Ghar Par Hai and Tujhse Hai Raabta to remove content that was deemed to benefit prospects of a political party.

Last week, office of chief Electoral Officer (CEO) had served notices to Binaifer Kohli and Sanjay Kohlis Edit II Productions (Bhabhiji Ghar Par Hai) and Sonali Potnis and Aamir Jaffers Full Media House (Tujhse Hai Raabta) after it received a complaint from the Congress, accusing the two shows of espousing the benefits of schemes run by Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government.

The Congress had taken objection to characters in the two TV serials praising government schemes like Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana, Swacch Bharat Abhiyan and Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana.

The two production houses had subsequently replied to the notice.

The producers had denied the allegations of promoting government schemes to propagate a political party, claiming they had no such intention. They also claimed that government schemes shown were general in nature," the official said.

The producers have also been asked to not to show any such content which may disturb the level playing field of any political party, the official said.

Google ups efforts to check misinformation ahead of Lok Sabha elections

Google is also going to launch its political ad transparency report before Indian elections, scheduled to begin on April 11.

Not just Facebook and Twitter, Google is also making an effort to ensure the authenticity of information on its advertisements and video platform as India heads towards General Elections in less than a month.

On Thursday, the company said it is ensuring authoritative news content gets better play on YouTube, where videos have seen growth in watch time triple for content from authoritative sources in the last two years, said Tim Katz, the video platform’s director of news partnerships.

YouTube, which is owned by Google, is ensuring there is news from credible sources that is put on the platform, with enough context.

With elections less than a month away, the Indian government has been trying to address the issue of misinformation and fake news spreading through social media and messaging platforms such as WhatsApp. Recently, the Parliamentary Committee on information technology met with senior executives of Facebook and Twitter and the Election Commission has also said social media platforms have committed to help check the spread of fake news in the run up to elections.

The video platform has introduced fact checks to its panels in India, just below the search results, which relies on and "open ecosystem of publishers and fact checking experts".It is currently available in Engligh and will shortly be available in Hindi.

The "Top News" and "Breaking News" sections on YouTube highlight videos from credible news sources in search results and during major news events globally.

Google has partnered with an open source community schema.org, which provides news organisations with a tool called ClaimReview markup that helps put "markers" on fact-checked news reports. Google's systems then decide whether the content would be useful to users and should show in search results, based on relevancy and several other factors.

"A publisher writes a fact-checking story on their own website, then they take this tool... (which is) like a developer tool, and can put annotations on to their article. Its like metadata for their articles. And this allows third parties like Google to scan that metadata and understand when was this written, what was the topic, how did they research it, how were they able to verify the veracity of their claim," said Katz.

He added that YouTube was working towards the future of online video by working with news organisations and developing product features for news on its platform.

Article Source BS

Replace EVMs with 'tried and tested' ballot papers in Lok Sabha polls: AAP

The party has also exhorted all opposition parties to boycott the polls if their demand was not paid heed to.

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Wednesday demanded that in view of the latest charges against the electronic voting machines (EVMs) by a hacker in London, the old, tried and tested ballot papers should be used again in the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections.

The party has also exhorted all opposition parties to boycott the polls if their demand was not paid heed to.

Rajya Sabha member of AAP and in-charge of Uttar Pradesh, Sanjay Singh told IANS that this was necessary to "save democracy and install faith of the people once again in the election process".

The national spokesman of the AAP further said that the latest revelations clearly shrouded the neutrality of the EVM's and hence should be replaced with ballot papers.

"These EVM's show the benefit of EVM's going to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and takes away from the opposition a level playing field" he said further.

Chief spokesman of the party's state unit, Vaibhav Maheshwari while claiming that the Election Commission was not ready to concede that the EVM's were open for tampering demanded that the poll panel ensure a "public audit" of the EVM's.

Raising doubts on the fairies of the EVM's, the party has demanded that all political parties should write to the Election Commission of India, saying that they will boycott the elections for the Lok Sabha if the EVM's were used for the polls.

"There is no other option but to ban the EVM's and conduct the Lok Sabha and all future elections through ballot paper method" Sanjay Singh said.

Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav on Tuesday had spoken on similar lines and had cited the example of a "developed nation like Japan" which still used the traditional ballot paper method for elections in their country.

"In view of the recent revelations, further doubts have been created in the minds of people and the EC should taken them into account" the former UP chief minister has said.

The ruling BJP leaders, both in the state and the centre, have trashed the accusations made by the opposition parties and have claimed that by raising doubts on the EVM's, the opposition was making ground for an almost certain defeat at the hustings in the Lok Sabha 2019 polls.

Business Standard

Linking Aadhaar with voter id may be mandatory: Benefits and Steps for Aadhaar-voter id linking

Election Commission has halted seeding of voter cards with Aadhaar numbers for the time being.

Business Standard : Have you linked your voter ID with Aadhaar yet? Soon, linking of voter ID with Aadhaar maybe made mandatory. According to a report published in Economic Times, the Election Commission, in a shift in its stand, is preparing to pitch for the mandatory, legally backed, linking of voter IDs with Aadhaar number.

"The commission will propose amendments to the Representation of the People Act, 1951, that will require citizens to link their Electoral Photo ID Card (EPIC) with the 12-digit Aadhaar, while ensuring privacy protection," the report said.

In October, EC informed the Madras High Court it had no object linking Aadhaar with electoral rolls and voter ID card as sought in a public interest litigation to check bogus and invalid entries.

The commission, however, said a decision has to be taken keeping in view the recent Supreme Court order on the Centre's flagship Aadhaar scheme.

The commission said that It also had to consider the expenses that would be incurred in case Aadhaar was linked.

EC's U-turn

In 2015, the commission had embarked on 'voluntary' Aadhaar linking. However, the Supreme court stalled the process over privacy concerns. By that time it had covered nearly 380 million voters. India currently has more than 750 million registered voters.

Benefits of Aadhaar-voter id linking

A PIL sought mandatory linking of voter id to Aadhaar. Petitioner M L Ravi sought linking of Aadhaar with electoral rolls and voter IDs to check entry of repeat, multiple, illegal, invalid, false voters. He submitted to the Madras High Court that the manual door-to-door verification process for the preparation of electoral rolls by the EC resulted in errors.

Election Commission has halted seeding of voter cards with Aadhaar numbers for the time being. However, if and when EC has its way, here's how you will be able to link voter id with Aadhaar:

Steps for portal seeding

— Enter your details such as state, district, personal details such as name, date of birth and father’s name.

— Once you fill in all these details then, click on the “Search” button. If the information provided by you matches with the Government database, then the details will appear.

— Click on “Feed Aadhaar No”.. Read More