Heena Sharma Blog

Never since Indira Gandhi’s famous 1971 electoral triumph had an incumbent prime minister returned with a majority. Never since 1984 had a party crossed the 300-seat mark. On Thursday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi became the first ever non-Congress prime minister to return to power after a full term, and also the first in 48 years to return with a majority. The BJP, at the time of filing this report, was leading in 303 seats, and in 353 seats along with its allies. The last time a party crossed the 300-seat mark was in 1984, when the Congress won more than 400 seats in the wake of Indira Gandhi’s assassination. The scale and spread of the BJP’s victory are impressive. Apart from winning an unprecedented majority, the BJP vote share in 12 states is more than 50 per cent, including in big states such as Karnataka, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. In Uttar Pradesh and Tripura, the BJP vote share is 49 per cent. The Congress, expected to challenge the BJP at least in ...

WhatsApp clones and software tools that cost as little as Rs 1,000 are helping Indian digital marketers and political activists bypass anti-spam restrictions set up by the world’s most popular messaging app, Reuters has found. The activities highlight the challenges WhatsApp, owned by Facebook, faces in preventing abuse in India, its biggest market with more than 200 million users. With fervent campaigning in staggered general elections, which concludes on May 19, the demand for such tools has surged, according to digital companies and sources in the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its main rival, the Congress party. After false messages on WhatsApp last year sparked mob lynchings, the company restricted forwarding of a message to only five users. The software tools appear to overcome those restrictions, allowing users to reach thousands of people at once. Divya Spandana, the social media chief of the Congress, and the BJP’s IT head, Amit Malviya, did not respond ...

Makkal Needhi Maiyam (MNM) founder Kamal Haasan has stoked a possible controversy, saying free India's first "terrorist was a Hindu," referring to Nathuram Godse who killed Mahatma Gandhi. Addressing an election campaign here last night, the actor-politician said he was one of those "proud Indians" who desires an India with equality and where the "three colours" in the tricolour, an obvious reference to different faiths, "remained intact." "I am not saying this because this is a Muslim-dominated area, but I am saying this before a statue of Gandhi. Free India's first terrorist was a Hindu, his name is Nathuram Godse. There it (terrorism, apparently) starts," he said. Haasan said he had come here "seeking answers for that murder," referring to Gandhi's assassination in 1948. "Good Indians desire for equality and want the three colours in the tricolour to remain intact. I am a good Indian, will pro...

As part of the second phase of Lok Sabha elections in the country, polling began on Thursday morning in 38 Parliamentary Constituencies in Tamil Nadu. Sources said the polling process was delayed by at least one hour in a few booths in Tamil Nadu owing to technical glitches in the Electronic Voting Machines. Polling for Parliamentary Constituencies and by-poll for 18 Assembly Constituencies are being held in Tamil Nadu simultaneously. Voting was delayed in various constituencies including Choolaimedu, Guindy, Ashok Nagar, and Virugambakkam among others in Chennai, according to sources. In some booths in Chennai, voters who appeared without booth slips were not allowed to enter, which escalated tension. Polling for the two elections is otherwise going on as normal, with many political leaders, candidates and eminent personalities casting their votes in the morning. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami, BJP leader Tamilisai Soundararajan, and former Union Finance ...

Not just Facebook and Twitter, Google is also making an effort to ensure the authenticity of information on its advertisements and video platform as India heads towards General Elections in less than a month. On Thursday, the company said it is ensuring authoritative news content gets better play on YouTube, where videos have seen growth in watch time triple for content from authoritative sources in the last two years, said Tim Katz, the video platform’s director of news partnerships. YouTube, which is owned by Google, is ensuring there is news from credible sources that is put on the platform, with enough context. With elections less than a month away, the Indian government has been trying to address the issue of misinformation and fake news spreading through social media and messaging platforms such as WhatsApp. Recently, the Parliamentary Committee on information technology met with senior executives of Facebook and Twitter and the Election Commission has also said soci...

Congress President Rahul Gandhi will formally dispatch the gathering's survey battle in Kerala on Thursday when he will address an enormous rally of specialists at Kozhikode on March 14. Gandhi will touch base here tonight after his projects in Nagercoil and Kanyakumari in neighboring Tamil Nadu . He has no official projects in the state Wednesday and in the wake of coming to here, would load up an uncommon trip to Kochi and go through the night at a visitor house in Thrissur, KPCC president Mullappally Ramachandran said. The Congress boss would go to a progression of projects on March 14, starting with the "anglers' parliament" at Triprayar in Thrissur. Afterward, he would travel to Kannur, where he would meet the group of killed Youth Congress pioneer Shuhaib at the air terminal there. He would leave for Kasargod and meet the groups of Kripesh and Sarathlal, the adolescent congress activists, who were supposedly slaughtered by the CPI(M) as of l...

The budget session of Parliament is likely to be held from January 31 to Feb 13, and an interim budget is expected to be presented on February 1, government sources said Wednesday. They said the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs deliberated on the dates for the budget session at a meeting. Budget 2019 It is expected to be the last session of the current Lok Sabha as general elections are due in April-May. Read our full coverage on Interim budget 2019

After radio, WhatsApp will now run a television ad campaign in India -- a global first for the Facebook-owned company -- as it looks to crackdown spread of fake news on its platform ahead of the general elections in the country next year. WhatsApp, in a statement, said it has conducted extensive research with users in India and then developed three ad films that are based on a real user's experience. "The three films will be available on TV, Facebook, and YouTube in nine languages and reach the diverse population that makes up WhatsApp users. The campaign is timed to start just prior to the elections in Rajasthan and Telangana and WhatsApp will build on this effort headed into the national election next year," the statement added. These languages include English, Hindi, Bengali, Kannada, Telugu, Assamese, Gujarati, Marathi and Malayalam. The latest campaign comprises three 60-second films that convey real scenarios about dangerous rumours that sprea...