Mrinal Chatterjee
India, the largest democracy of the world, is going to vote in the next two months. An estimated 970 million voters are eligible to cast their ballots to elect 543 politicians to the Lok Sabha, the lower house of parliament. Some states including Odisha are also having assembly elections.
2024 is called the year of elections, as about 60 countries in the world are having elections this year. But India’s is the grandest. Here are some numbers to underline the grand scale of elections in India: the US has 168 million registered voters, Indonesia 204 m. Russia had 114 million, Pakistan 128 and Bangladesh 119 million.
The voter participation in India is more vigorous than many other countries including the US.
Election Commission in India (ECI) has embarked on several programmes including the flagship ‘Systematic Voter’s Education and Electoral Participation’ (SVEEP) for voter education, spreading voter awareness and promoting voter literacy in India. SVEEP is designed according to the socio-economic, cultural, and demographic profile of the state as well as history of electoral participation in previous rounds of elections. The Commission produces several voter awareness materials and disseminates various mediums/platforms of communication i.e Print Media, Electronic Media, Social Media etc. Under this initiative, Pran’s Features have published a comic book “Chacha Chaudhary aur Chunavi Dangal” of 62 pages with Pran’s popular cartoon characters Chacha Chaudhary, Sabu, Raaka, Dhamaka Singh and Billoo. The comic book has the same action and adventure along with a social message to vote. It contains ten episodic stories and a quiz covering a wide range of topics on Voter awareness by the ECI. In New Voter Registration story Chacha Chaudhary guides Billoo who has recently achieved his voting age the process for voter registration. Chacha Chaudhary inspires everyone to be a smart voter like him through various Apps developed by the ECI, such as Know Your Candidate App, cVIGIL App, Voter Turnout App, PWD App and Candidate App. Chacha Chaudhary and Bini motivates our women voters to come forward and vote fearlessly. A comic story inspires Third Gender voter awareness campaign of their equal rights in voting. Chacha Chaudhary explains to Sabu and Bini why everyone should vote and each vote matters.
It is available online- free of cost. Check it out.
Chhena Poda
For the last few years Chhena Poda Day is observed in Odisha on 11 April, which happens to be the birthday of master confectioner Sudarshan Sahu of Dashapalla (Nayagarh) who first made it- accidentally in 1947. He had left sweet chenna on hot flame, got occupied and forgot about his chenna for a few hours. When he came back, the chenna was charred on the surface, but was granular underneath. He liked its taste. He developed the dessert and gave us what we know as Chenna Poda today.
The closest English translation of ‘chhena poda’ is burnt (poda) or baked sweetmeat. But like most of the translations, it does not do justice to the original.
Chhena Poda, for the uninitiated, is a unique dessert which has a character of its own- framed by the burnt leaf aroma and granular taste. Chena Poda has to be made from fresh, home-made Chhena (not commercially produced stuff), which is well-kneaded with sugar, semolina and flavoured with cardamom, cashew nuts and raisins and is wrapped with Sal leaves and baked over wood fire, for several hours until it browns. A North Indian equivalent of it can be the baked Kalakand sold as Milk Cake. Bengalis have tried to compete with Baked Sandesh, but nothing comes close to the sublime Chhenna Poda.
Compared to Rasagola or Rasogolla, chhena poda is of recent origin, although paneer, it is claimed, existed since Vedic times and there is evidence to indicate that it was known to the people of the Indus Valley civilization.
A Ghost Story
A donkey was tied to a tree. One night a ghost cut the rope and released the donkey.
The donkey went and destroyed the crops in a farmer's land. Infuriated, the farmer's wife shot the donkey and killed it.
The donkey's owner was devastated at the loss. In reply, he shot dead the farmer's wife.
Angered by his wife's death, the farmer took a sickle and killed the donkey's owner.
The wife of the donkey's owner got so angry that she and her sons set the farmer's house on fire.
The farmer, looking at his house turned into ashes, went ahead and killed both the wife and children of that donkey's owner.
Finally, when the farmer was full of regret, he asked the ghost as to why did it kill them all?
The ghost replied, "I killed nobody. I just released a donkey that was tied to a rope. It is all of you who released the devil within you which resulted into everything bad that happened."
Morale of the Story: Be aware of the possibility of the Ghost releasing a donkey. And don’t overtly react to every donkey.
Disclaimer:
This is the personal opinion of the author. The views expressed in this write-up have nothing to do with www.prameyanews.com.
