Friday, October 27, 2006

Kerala - Kochi
Probe ordered into complaints against presiding officers

Staff Reporter

Collector seeks report from returning officers in this regard

KOCHI: Collector A.P.M. Mohammed Hanish has sought inquiry reports from returning officers regarding complaints against some presiding officers for the Assembly elections held last Saturday.

The returning officers have been asked to file reports on presiding officers including the officer at a polling booth in Piravom, who refused entry to UDF candidate T.M. Jacob into a polling booth. The Collector, who is also the District Election Officer, said that penal action would be taken against the presiding officers, if found guilty.

The Collector said that an inquiry had been ordered against the sector officers for the elections, including village officers and taluk officers, who were suspected of dereliction of duty. The sector officers were bound to visit polling booths at frequent intervals and make enquiries regarding the polling procedures.

Mr. Hanish said that the wide variance in polling percentage observed at certain booths was suspected to be caused by negligence of sector officers.

For example, the polling percentage in Piravom at 3 p.m. was observed to be 42, while it reached 74 per cent at 5 p.m. This showed that the reporting system was not perfect, according to the Collector.

He said that classes for counting officers would be held this week. The staff of the Revenue Department would be solely conducting the counting process. The election observers for the district have left for Delhi after the polling was completed. They will return on May 9 for the counting. The Collector said that the results could be completely declared by around 10 a.m. on May 11.

(The Hindu, May 3, 2006)

Friday, October 20, 2006

Kerala - Kochi

A feast for art lovers in Kochi

Staff Reporter

KOCHI: The Thiruvananthapuram-based artist P.K. Surendran is exhibiting his works in Kochi from this week. The show will start at the Durbar Hall Art Centre on Friday.

Surendran, who hails from Muvattupuzha, took BFA in sculpture from the College of Fine Arts, Thiruvananthapuram, in 1992. His show will continue till May 12.

Another show, a group exhibition of 16 artists, is on at Cochin Art Gallery in Fort Kochi. Located at Princess Street in Fort Kochi, the Cochin Art Gallery was established eight years ago by the late Captain Ludvic. Though a seaman by profession, Captain Ludvic had possessed a passion for the arts. Out of this love was born this art gallery.

The present show of paintings and drawings marks the eighth anniversary of Cochin Art Gallery. The artists are Puninchithaya P.S., V.B. Venu, Asanthan, Biju Kumar, Shibu Adhil, Sunil Anthony, Sanil Rockey, Shihab, Roy C.C., Fiiroz, Madhu, Basheer, Nazer, Francis Assissi, Paul and Jayaprakash. Almost all of them are local artists and some of them had exhibited in Kochi earlier.

An oil painting exhibition by Phalgunan Kumbalapravan began at the Kerala Lalithakala Academy.

The show that opened on Monday is on till Wednesday between 11 a.m. and 7 p.m.
(The Hindu, May 2, 2006)
Kerala - Kochi

Documents of booths with high turnout scrutinised

Staff Reporter

KOCHI: Election observers, on Sunday, scrutinised documents in booths in the Perumbavoor, Vadakkekara, Kunnathunad, Paravur, Mattancherry and Piravom constituencies where a high percentage of polling was recorded. The documents have been kept in strong rooms near counting centres. The scrutiny in 15 booths in Perumbavoor, six in Kunnathunad, three in Paravur and one each in Mattancherry and Piravom were completed. Though the scrutiny in eight booths in Vadakkekara was also completed, the Election Commission is yet to receive the report.

More men vote
Though the 14 constituencies in the district have more women than men in the electoral rolls, a higher number of men exercised their franchise compared with women.

In 12 constituencies, men outnumbered women in the turnout. Vadakkekara and Paravur are the exceptions.

In Vadakkekara, 55,461 women voted, while only 54,499 men exercised their franchise.

In Paravur, 50,129 women took part in the polls, while the number of men who voted came to 49,593.

(The Hindu, May 1, 2006)

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Kerala - Kochi

Fluctuating pattern

Staff Reporter

Rural voter were more enthusiastic in casting their votes

KOCHI: The district recorded a fluctuating voting pattern. However, the rural voters were less reluctant to exercise their franchise than their urban counterparts. Ernakulam, Aluva and Mattancherry constituencies had generally low-voter turnout. The degree of reluctance among the city voters seemed rather high in the Ernakulam Assembly seat with 7 per cent of the electorate exercising their franchise by 9 a.m.

The figure remained low throughout the day, well behind the average figure. When the average was 24.1 at 11 a.m., Ernakulam had only 17 per cent. At 4 p.m., the city's voting percentage was 53.8, higher only than Mattancherry, which had 52.9 percent. Aluva too recorded only 54.1 per cent in the evening.

The rural voters generally seemed more enthusiastic to cast their votes. Angamaly, which started out with a low figure of 7 per cent, and Paravur, which had 10 in the beginning, recorded the highest at 4 p.m., with 65 per cent each.

Perumbavoor maintained a higher voter turnout right from the beginning. Recording 18 per cent at 9 a.m., the polling in Perumbavoor remained higher than the district average almost all the time. At 4 p.m., the figure was 63.

Kunnathunadu constituency also maintained a high figure right from the beginning, starting out with 18 in the morning. Keeping almost up with Perumbavoor, Kunnathunadu also had 63 per cent voting at 4 p.m.

(The Hindu, April 30, 2006)
Kerala - Kochi
Identity proof for casting vote

Staff Reporter

Control room set up at Kakkanad

KOCHI: Voters who have not received the voter's identity cards can use any of the following identity cards for casting their vote:

Passport, driving licence, Income Tax Department's PAN card and passbook of savings bank at post offices or any of the nationalised banks, State Bank of India or any banks subsidiary to the SBI. Passbooks from other banks, including the gramin banks, are not acceptable as identity proof.

Photo identity cards have been distributed to a total of 99.42 per cent of voters in the district, according to the District Collector, A P M Mohammed Hanish.

A control room that has been opened at the Collectorate at Kakkanad will receive all complaints and information related to law and order issues, machine snags and polling percentage, during the voting on Saturday.

Complaints regarding any violation of the model code of conduct could be informed to the Control Room. Phone: 0484-2421453.

The Public Relations Department has set up a Media Centre at the Collectorate for handling all news related to the polling. Phone: 0484-2427152 / 2426381.

(The Hindu, April 28, 2006)
Kerala - Kochi
Election preparations complete

Staff Reporter

Distribution of polling material begins at 8 a.m. today

KOCHI: Arrangements have been completed for the Assembly elections to be held on Saturday in which 21,01,387 voters in the district will cast their vote.

District Collector A.P.M. Mohammed Hanish, who is also the District Election Officer, told presspersons at the Media Centre set up at the Collectorate on Thursday that the 2,009 polling booths in the district, including 1,970 ordinary and 39 auxiliary ones, will be ready by Friday evening. The distribution of polling material will begin at 8 a.m. on Friday at 14 centres in the district.

Setting of the electronic voting machines has been completed. Machines have also been kept ready for emergency use. Mobile squads will visit the booths for rectifying any technical problems.

Communication network
A communication network linking all the polling booths to the district administration has been established, said the Collector. This will enable the Election Commission keep in touch with all the booths even if they are out of mobile coverage area.

The network is established by identifying the nearest landline numbers to each polling booth in case of booths that have no phone connection.

The database has already been collected and circulated among the officials.

Thripunithura, with the highest number of voters, tops in the number of polling booths with 198 booths, which includes 185 ordinary and 13 auxiliary ones. Mattancherry has the lowest number with 90 ordinary booths and three auxiliary ones.

Ramanthuruthu, in Mattancherry constituency, with 15 voters, has the least number of voters. A booth has been arranged exclusively for the residents of the Ponganchuvadu Tribal Colony.

Digital cameras will be installed at 160 booths, including the 102 notified as sensitive and vulnerable.

The Election Commission will decide on the other 58 booths where the cameras will be installed. The cameras will be used to record the images of all voters who come to cast votes at these booths.

Besides the digital cameras, the video squads of the police and the returning officers will visually document the election procedure.

A police force of 4,500 personnel has been deployed for maintaining law and order during the polling. Police personnel from Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan will also be deployed.

At the problem booths, four policemen from the other States will be deployed additionally.

Around 220 buses, 635 light vehicles and three boats will be used for transporting officials and moving polling materials.

All the 2,004 service ballots in the district for members of armed forces have been despatched, as well as the postal ballots.

A special class will be arranged on Friday morning for giving last-minute directions for the returning officers.

The Election Commission will inform the officers about regarding the cut-off percentage and about the procedures to be adopted in case the polling rate goes higher than the cut-off percentage.
(The Hindu, April 28, 2006)

Kerala

Art of shaping lumps of earth

The newly built studio of Terracraft at Karukappadam, Eroor, was buzzing with activity. Many hands were kneading lumps of clay, moulding the soft lumps into forms and shapes. There were little children as well as experienced artists.

The get-together was organised by Terracraft in connection with the opening of their new studio space on Sunday. The studio was planned as an extension of the activities of Terracraft, according to Jayan, who runs the designer pottery unit at Eroor.

The studio was formally inaugurated by senior artist C.N. Karunakaran, by turning the potter's wheel set up in the centre of the room. Ammnikutty, Jayan's mother, lit a traditional lamp. The one-day camp was more an informal get-together of students, artists and ordinary people who had never handled clay before. Many belonged to the last group, like Jolly, a casual worker at Kochi Refineries Limited. He had never worked with clay before, neither had he done any sculpture. But the horse-head that he had crafted out of clay looked not like the creation of an untutored hand.

The participants included Rajan M. Krishnan, Hochimin, Venu B. from Eramalloor, George C.G., Madhu C.V., Radha R., Salil A.X, from Kothamangalam, Jithin Kumar, a student of RLV College, Tripunithura, Vineesh Vijayan, Sanosh, T.R. Ramesh and others. About 15 children, residing in Eroor and nearby areas, also participated in the workshop.The works created at the one-day camp will be exhibited at a later date, said Mr. Jayan.

The studio will be used for giving training to students in pottery along with the regular work of the pottery unit.
RENU RAMANATH
(The Hindu, April 27, 2006)

Kerala - Kochi
Preparations for polls reach final stages

Staff Reporter

EVMs readied for 10 of the 14 constituencies

KOCHI: Preparations for the Assembly elections on Saturday are reaching their final stages in Ernakulam district.
Setting of electronic voting machines (EVMs) for 10 of the 14 constituencies in the district was completed in the respective counting centres on Tuesday, in the presence of representatives of political parties and Election Observers. The setting for the Vadakkekara, Aluva, Muvattupuzha and Kothamagalam constituencies will be completed on Wednesday.

In a novel step, 185 polling officers will be trained in using digital cameras, on a directive of the Election Commission.

The officers, selected from a list prepared for choosing presiding and polling officers, will be given training on Thursday at the District Panchayat Hall at Kakkanad.

The cameras will be used to record happenings in polling booths, especially those declared 'sensitive' and 'vulnerable.' The idea is to make the election procedure as transparent as possible and eliminate possibilities for anomalies, District Collector A.P.M. Mohammed Hanish said here on Tuesday.

He said a thorough communication plan had been prepared for tracking polling booths. A neighbouring telephone would be identified for each booth; they could be of houses, shops or even public call offices. Even if the booths were not accessible by mobile phones, these landlines could be used to reach them.

Vehicles and boats had been arranged for transporting polling officials and polling material. Nearly 600 of them, such as utility vehicles, minivans and buses, were needed.

Defamatory posters
The Collector said the authorities concerned were vigilant against use of defamatory posters and booklets printed without adequate information on them for campaign. Certain persons identified in this connection had been kept under notice. The authorities were examining such posters seen in different parts of the district. A case would be registered in connection with a highly defamatory poster against the United Democratic Front candidate in the Ernakulam constituency, K.V. Thomas.

District Planning Officer Velayudhan Chettiar, who is the Returning Officer for constituency, had been given directions in this regard.

Mr. Hanish said an anti-defacement squad working in the district had been requested to inform expenditure officers about the cost incurred in removing posters pasted in violation of the law. The expenditure officers were V. Anantha Shenoy, Finance Officer at the Collectorate, and K.G. Raju, Revenue Divisional Officer, Muvattupuzha.

Postal ballots
The Collector said postal ballots had been despatched. Details of documents that could be used for identification in the absence of voter identity cards would be distributed in the form of leaflets.

The officials would also be given clear guidelines on the steps to be taken according to a directive of the Election Commission in case polling percentage was higher than 80 in any booths.

A media centre will be opened by Mr. Hanish at 4 p.m. on Wednesday at the Public Relations Department at the Collectorate.

(The Hindu, April 26, 2006)
Kerala - Others
CPI trying to regain its lost fortress of Kodungalloor

Renu Ramanath

In 2001, party candidate Meenakshi Thampan suffered a shocking defeat here at the hands of the JSS candidate

KODUNGALLOOR: Kodungalloor had been a bastion of the Communist Party of India (CPI) till the 2001 Assembly elections when Umesh Challiyil of the Janadhipathya Samrakshana Samithi (JSS) won the seat for the United Democratic Front.


In the elections held since 1977, the CPI had been holding sway over the constituency. The late V.K. Rajan, former Minister for Agriculture and party leader, had represented it from that year to 1991.

In 2001, Mr. Challiyil, a youth leader of the samithi, defeated the party candidate, Meenakshi Thampan, who was representing the constituency then, by 11,941 votes.

This time, the party is determined to regain the lost fortress. The party candidate, K.P. Rajendran, MLA representing Cherpu in Thrissur, is giving a tough fight to Mr. Challiyil, who is also determined to retain the seat.

The election talk in Kodungalloor centres on the memory of the late V.K. Rajan, who shifted to the neighbouring Mala constituency to make way for Prof. Thampan. Candidates, cutting across party lines, make it a point to start their campaign by visiting the V.K. Rajan Memorial in his house at Pulloottu. This time, Mr. Rajendran and Mr. Challiyil arrived almost at the same time at the memorial on April 3, before starting their campaigns.

While development remains the key electoral issue on the surface at least, political equations are an underlying factor in Kodungalloor. The constituency, with 1,50,497 voters, has a strong presence of Ezhava and Muslim communities, which form 41 per cent and 30 per cent, respectively, of the population.

Mr. Challiyil, favoured by the Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana (SNDP) Yogam leadership, has been president of the Kodungalloor taluk SNDP Union for 12 years. He is also regional committee treasurer of the Yogam.

Mr. Challiyil's taking oath in the Assembly in the name of Sree Narayana Guru had kicked up a storm, leading to debates about the propriety and validity of his action. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is reported to have 22,000 votes in the constituency, according to estimates made from the voting pattern in the recent local bodies polls, has fielded Mohan Shankar, son of the former Chief Minister R. Shankar. Mr. Mohan Shankar, who had contested as the Congress candidate in Kottayam in the Assembly elections in 1996, was defeated by the late T.K. Ramakrishnan. He joined the BJP later. He has served as director of Sree Narayana Trust and Yogam councillor. The Kodungalloor municipality and all the panchayats, Perinjanam, Mathilakam, Sree Narayana Puram, Edavilangu, Eriyadu and Methala, in the constituency are ruled by the Left Front. The BJP has improved its position here in recent years, winning three seats in the municipality. It has also become the largest single party in Edavilangu panchayat, though an alliance of the Left Front and the Democratic Indira Congress-Karunakaran (DIC-K) has managed to keep it out of power.
(The Hindu, April 25, 2006)

102 booths declared sensitive and vulnerable in district

Staff Reporter

Additional police force will be deployed in these booths

KOCHI: A total of 102 polling booths in the district have been declared as 'sensitive' and 'vulnerable.' Of this, 30 have been declared as 'sensitive,' and 72 as 'vulnerable.'

Additional police force will be deployed in these booths for special attention, according to District Collector A.P.M. Mohammed Hanish, who is also the District Election Officer.

Among the booths under the limits of the City Police, 10 booths are 'sensitive' and 36 'vulnerable.' Under the rural police, this was 20 and 36 respectively.

Four police personnel would be deployed in these booths in addition to the usual police force, said the Collector.

Group patrolling would also be employed. The issue of using digital cameras in these booths would be brought to the notice of the Election Commission, he said.

There is one sensitive booth each in Kothamangalam, Kunnathunadu and Ernakulam constituencies, two each in Angamaly, Paravur, Vadakkekara, Njarakkal, Piravom, Aluva and Palluruthy, three each in Mattancherry, Thripunithura and Perumbavoor and four in Muvattupuzha constituency.

The authorities have received information that vehicles are being used for election campaigning without obtaining the necessary permission. The Collector has issued warning that such vehicles will be confiscated without prior notice.

Vehicles used for campaigning should have the vehicle pass issued by the respective Retuning Officers and the pass issued by the police for the use of microphone. Complaints have also been received regarding the distribution of notices, banners and posters, which are derogatory to the candidates.

The printing presses where such notices have been printed as well as the vehicles being used without obtaining the necessary permissions are under observation, said the Collector.

Meanwhile, State Election Observer P.C. Kapoor expressed satisfaction with the arrangements for the polls in the district. He held discussions on the functioning of the election officers in different constituencies with the election observers.

The training for the polling personnel was completed on Monday, with the classes held at the Maharaja's College Auditorium. Out of the two persons who were missing from the training camps, one person reported for duty on Monday. Only the other person remains to be traced.

The setting of the electronic voting machines (EVMs) will be held on Tuesday and Wednesday at the different centres in the district. The political parties and candidates have been informed of this.
(The Hindu, April 25, 2006)