Published Dec 31, 2023 | 6:00 PM ⚊ Updated Jan 01, 2024 | 6:58 PM
India's skewed population growth has implications for the South when it comes to delimitation. (iStock.jpg)
2023 was a newsy year marked by significant policy changes, Assembly elections, and various events.
Here is a selection of some of our best opinion pieces on these developments featured on South First from the year.
Telangana Assembly elections 2023 was all about KCR vs the people (as reported in these columns), and in the end, the people won. Dozens of reasons could be cited for the defeat of BRS, but the blame squarely and singularly rests with KCR for his refusal or unwillingness to introspect.
The Narendra Modi government, which has already delayed the decadal census (which was supposed to be done in 2021), wants women’s reservation to depend on numbers from the census conducted after the passage of the quota Bill — as well as the completion of the delimitation process based on those census figures.
The proposed national delimitation exercise that can alter how many seats each state gets in the Lower House of Parliament has already raised concerns about the unequal representation it may create, especially in the case of the Southern states.
The office of the Governor occupies a pivotal space in Indian democracy. A conscientious Governor upholds the dignity of his office, diligently serving the public interest and the greater good. He or she also refrains from pursuing narrow political agendas or self-aggrandisement.
Two MPs from the AIMIM opposed the Women’s Reservation Bill in what has become characteristic of the party they represent. The AIMIM stance on women’s leadership and participation in public life does not seem to be in sync with the rising hopes and aspirations of Indian Muslim women as witnessed in the last two decades.
It was the YSRCP that first demanded the protection of voters’ privacy in Andhra Pradesh during the 2019 elections. Now, the Jana Sena Party is demanding “My Data, My Right”, protesting against the Andhra Pradesh government’s village volunteers collecting personal data. The TDP, too, has joined in, demanding an end to 360-degree profiling.
On 24 March, the then BJP government in Karnataka led by former Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai — with no scientific study, no consultation, or empirical data, it seems — decided that huge groups of Muslims in the state are no longer socio-economically backwards and hence don’t deserve reservation under the Other Backward Classes (OBC) quota. As we noted in this column, the BJP led by Home Minister Amit Shah made the same pitch in elections that followed Karnataka polls.
