Governance Made Simple

 In school, we were asked to write essays such as "If I Became President/Prime Minister/Chief Minister.." etc. where you could write about your childish fantasies, and be happy. I am no longer a child, and I am not writing an essay. Just bear with me. This is one and only one Mantra for Successful Governance, in my view. Ok, we'll call it Customer or Citizen-oriented Governance, maybe.

The Mantra is just this- Keep it Simple. Air Deccan used to have a slogan- Simplifly. I would recommend the same. For instance, why need people to go stand in line? Most government services can be home-delivered, if there is a will. A small additional charge is cheaper than wasting a citizen's time, energy and effort in finding which office to go to, and waiting endlessly with file pushers and gatekeepers looking for excuses to delay everything. If we want to progress from being a third-world country to a First rate one, an opportunity is in governance. Singapore has shown the way in many ways. 

Visa processes exemplify this in another sphere. I will henceforth only travel to countries that have a paperless visa not requiring a visit to the Consulates, or have a visa on arrival. Why should I subject myself to red tape and multiple visits to their consulates? They are not pretty tourist attractions, after all. 

Anyway, I think I have made my point. Let's exit red tape, bureaucracy, and meaningless paperwork which are all relics of the past- or should be, anyway.

Trexit

There's no such word, or acronym. I just made it up. But with the great interest (not the financial one) in exits of all kinds-Brexit, Rexit and so on, I thought we could invent a few. So Trexit is just a trick to get you to read this inventive post.

Mustexit- The permanent closure of the production house that produces the Masti flicks.

Shirxit- A Salman film.

Syxit- LED bulbs not made by Syska.

Gorexit- The result of the Quit India movement, 1942. (Goras leaving)

Jokexit- End of humour, as we knew it.

Ekxit- Ekta Kapoor's retirement from serial-killer serials.

Texit- The guy who drives a texts while driving. (and may exit the mortal world)

Guexit- The line of miffed guests walking out on Arnab Goswami.

Brexit- actually, breaks-it, any movie starring Akshay Kumar- or even the Dollar banian ad.

Shakesit- The artists who shake their bootiya in Hindi films. (refer to Finding Fanny).

Vexit- all those who are vexed with the exits above.

Getsit- The guy/gal who gets all the above.

Thoughts On Exit Polls and Results

Exit polls, one would expect, are a little bit easier than opinion polls. The only question you ask is "Whom did you vote for?" and you expect one answer, the name of a party. You then add up the numbers. So what can go wrong?

Plenty, it seems, because the last few times, the margin of error has been fairly big. For one, it all depends on the sampling method, and representativeness of the sample. With experts doing the sampling, usually they do try and do it right.

Even if you get the percentage of votes right, sometimes it is tricky to predict who will win the seat. Indian contests usually involve at least three to four contenders (serious ones). The votes get divided, and the winner (almost) never gets 50% of the vote. Therefore, if one party is at 31% and another at 29%, it's hard to predict (given unavoidable errors) who will actually win the seat. This can happen over many seats that are closely fought.

But if there is a massive swing against a ruling party or FOR a new party, it is probably easier to catch that in the air, apart from the poll data. Like many expect this time around.

Interesting to see what happens on the 16th. Swing, wave, et.al.- yes, or no?