Times of India - Lead India contest

Times of India announced a lead india contest. And the last date for applying for this is Sept 7th.

TOI says "'Lead India' initiative to provide a platform for the best and the brightest of Indian youth to come forward and showcase their capability as the Leaders of tomorrow. This is an effort to look for and groom a young leadership which will be bright and modern-minded and can herald this nation from 'India Poised' to India Realized. "

Registration Phase - Aug 14-Sept 7, '07
The 'Lead India' programme has been broadly divided into three phases: The first phase is the registration phase which calls for entries. The same can be done by eligible Indian citizens by sending the registration form to The Times of India from August 14-September 7, 2007.

Interested participants can also log on to www. lead.timesofindia.com or SMS 'lead' to 8888 City

Elimination - October 2007
In the city elimination round, one person each will be shortlisted from Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Pune and Hyderabad. The elimination round will comprise of debates, papers, projects, personal interviews and other evaluation techniques as decided by The Times of India.

National Finals - Nov '07-Dec '07
The 8 'Lead India' City winners will participate in the final phase where they will be evaluated through various techniques as decided by The Times Of India and finally one winner will be selected.

The winner gets Rs 50 Lakhs from TOI to help him lead in any of his favorite projects and he would also be given a chance for the Lok sabha elections.

I think it's a good initiative for we young to express themselves and understand the political realities.
So people who are participating to experience it, need not even read my rest if the post and go with a positive thinking. However if you are a true thought leader then you should continue reading!

I registered in this site yesterday to see what it asks for and what's the contest all about.
When i filled the form it just asked me 'Please share your experience of any leadership roles u have played'.

Well i filled this, and i was expecting there will be one more form asking me for some more info about myself. But nothing came up!

So TOI going to select the leaders based a simple textbox that i have filled?

Times of India does not mention anywhere about what process are they going to follow to select there leaders. What qualities are they going to look for? and how would they judge it? It just mentions there would be few essays, debates etc etc.

More than a year back i had predicted that we might land up having a stupid sms voting system to choose our leaders as well, just the way we have for contests like Indian Idol and Fame gurukul. I had blogged on that here. And i am finding this true now.
The lead india contest as well would be SMS votes based!. How crazy!
I don't know if i should feel happy as my predictions have come true, or feel bad about this.

There was a section in the website where one can select his favorite leader from a list of leaders. TOI says they have selected the popular leaders post independence. I don't know on what basis was this selection made.
I checked all the leaders and was looking for few more popular names, but did not find them. Then i thought there would be some space or a textbox where i can add a new leader name. But surprisingly the list was freezed!

Are our Police matured enough to handle POTA or any special rights?

After the recent blasts in Hyderabad, the oppositions parties have been consistently saying that if POTA would have been there and police would have been given a free hand in handling terrorism and this situation could have been avoided.


To give a brief..., POTA gives special rights to police to arrest suspected people without the requirement of complete evidence. The idea behind POTA was to have all suspects inside the bars even if there is not enough proof so that they cannot cause much harm by being outside.
POTA existed during the BJP rule and then was removed later by Congress.


Now the question is even if POTA is reintroduced, is our Police is matured enough to handle this?
I personally feel they are not at all matured.

I was literally shocked at the video of how a Police man tortured a chain snatcher in Bagalpur in Bihar by dragging him by the vehicle. Check the news here. Check the video here

This is a total violation of Human rights, and the Police have been doing this again and again in many circumstances. Last time during the Mecca Masjid blasts the Police men had brutally killed few innocent for no reason.


This is not meant to say that all Police men are like this Or to say that they aren't doing any good job. But they aren't the best as well!
Why am i being humble by comparing with the best???...[:S]..Well the truth is that they are far far away from the best.



Before the Govt brings any new rules and regulation for Police they need to increase the standard of Knowledge and Education in police. Otherwise Police would just misuse there freedom and go on making arrests based on there whims and fancies under the name of POTA.

It's time we have better educated people in Police. This would also require us to increase there pay scale so that more number of educated people are motivated to join them.

Unless these changes happen, whatever rules and regulations come, be it POTA or anything, we would never have a strong security backbone and never be crime or terror free.