Actor Rajinikanth is reportedly planning to contest the upcoming assembly elections in Veppanahalli constituency, which includes his home village of Nachikuppam. Do you think this is a little over-the-top since actor Rajini has not started, but this is the reality of the field. The Vepanahalli block is located on the border of Karnataka.

There are a considerable number of Kannada and Marathi language speaking residents in this constituency of Krishnagiri district. With all this in mind, Rajini’s team is said to have done a field study in this constituency.

Rajinikanth once mentioned to his fans that he was basically from a traditional Tamil family and his father and grandfather were all born and lived in Nachikuppam village near Veppanahalli in Krishnagiri district. Rajinikanth is also said to have lived in this village until he was 4 years old. Meanwhile, a secret study was conducted to find out Rajini’s fame and the possibilities for the victory in this constituency. 

The Veppanahalli block is bordered by Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. In this constituency, Kannada-speaking and Saurashtra residents live parallel to the Tamil-speaking population. Thus, this constituency will definitely be favorable to Rajini. Meanwhile, the MLA in the constituency is Mr. Murugan of AIADMK.

Source: One India Tamil

A government system that gives power to citizens to elect their representatives and form a legislative body for governance is referred to as democracy. 

India is a democratic republic. This article gives you the information of the four pillars of democracy in India. 

What are the Four Pillars of Indian Democracy?

The Four Pillars of Indian Democracy are Judiciary, Executive, Legislature and Media.

Let us discuss each pillar of Indian democracy. 

Legislature

Legislature denotes the legislative body of a country or state. 

The legislative body of the country and state make laws that govern the country and states. 

The representatives elected by the people are the part of the legislative body and they make and change laws.

The supreme legislative body of India is the Parliament of India. This legislature consists of two houses namely Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. 

Similarly state legislature consists of two houses, State Legislative Council (The Upper House) and State Legislative Assembly (The Lower House). 

Executive

Executives are selected by the election system in India. The representatives elected for the Parliamentary Houses are the Members of Parliament (MP). 

The Parliamentary is formed by a party that holds majorly attained by the election system. 

The Members of Parliament from the majority party elect the President of India.

Similarly, a representative elected by people for state legislative assembly is known as a Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA).

These elected executives are more important to design and pass a bill in the state legislature and parliament house.  

Judiciary

Judiciary is another important pillar of Indian democracy that ensures that law and orders do not curtail the citizens’ fundamental rights. 

The common law system is managed by the Indian Judiciary system. 

Judicial system in India consists of the Supreme Court of India, High Courts, District Courts and Tribunals/Boards. 

The highest authority of the Indian judiciary system is The Supreme Court. 

Indian courts have the responsibility to handle and pass decisions on various issues in a political entity such as the country or state. 

Media

Media must ensure the transparency of all the above-mentioned three Pillars of India and reach the actual happenings to all the common people in the country. 

Media has the responsibility to keep the citizens informed about the activities of executives, legislative system and judiciary system. 

Media is a key medium that provides information about the happenings to citizens and helps them to question those in power. 

All the four pillars of Indian democracy must be strong and independent to ensure the democracy in the nation. 

However, there may be bias among some media in reaching the actual information to the public. 

Social media plays a significant role in reaching news to the individual citizens, at the same time they fail to filter the fake message circulation. 

Give your opinion on the present state of these Pillars of India in the comment section.  

Digital India focuses on the development of nine different development areas that are inclusively termed as Nine Pillars of Digital India. 

Each pillar of Digital India is a complex programme to be implemented on a large scale by the Government of India through the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY). 

This article discusses what is Digital India and the nine pillars of the Digital India programme designed by the Government. 

Digital India

Digital India is a digital transformation programme that focuses on transforming India into a digitally empowered nation.  

The government has taken initiatives through many e-governance projects in order to offer various electronic services to citizens and make them electronically connect with society. 

Let us explore the Nine Pillars of Digital India. 

1. Broadband Highways

This programme was initiated by the government that aimed to offer broadband to 2,50,000 gram panchayats by 2016. 

As part of this programme, the networks were planned to integrate with cloud infrastructure in order to offer cloud services and high speed internet connectivity to gram panchayats. 

As reported by The Wire, only 2.5% gram panchayats have been provided with broadband connection as of January 2019.  

According to a government’s report, fiber optic broadband connectivity was provided to 1.1 lakh gram panchayat. However, The Wire reported that 50% of the broadband connections were not in function or offered with faulty equipment as on 11th Dec 2018. 

FactChecker reported that the government has failed to offer broadband internet facility to all gram panchayats as part of its Digital India programme. 

2. Universal Access to Mobile Connectivity 

The second pillar of Digital India planned to penetrate network connectivity and offer seamless mobile network connectivity by filling gaps in the country. 

Offering mobile network coverage to 55,619 villages in India that do not have mobile connectivity is the focus of this initiative. 

3. Public Internet Access Programme

This initiative was aimed to convert post offices as multi-service centres and starting Common Service Centers (CSC) all over the nation. 

The number of CSCs were aimed to increase to 2,50,000 in order to have a CSE per village in the nation. DeitY was given the responsibility to implement this project.

The Department of Posts was given the responsibility to convert 1,50,00 post offices as multi-service centres. 

4. e-Governance – Reforming Government through Technology 

This digital initiative focuses on redesigning the government processes with the help of information technology to make the government processes efficient and simple. 

This could aim the government to deliver its services efficiently across different departments. 

Reforming the processes includes simplifying application forms, managing and tracking online applications, managing online repositories (managing certificates and documents in digital format) and integration of different services (ex. Linking Aadhaar and payment gateways). 

5. eKranti – Electronic Delivery of Services

eKranti aims to provide easy access to all Government services to all common people at any locality in the nation. 

There were different projects taken for consideration by the Government to transform e-governance and mobile governance. 

This initiative integrates government services through cloud services and delivers services through mobile and enables fast-tracking and approval for the Government projects. 

6. Information for All

The development of an open data platform was initiated by the Government in order to offer various projects and related data to all common people through the internet platform (data.gov.in).

MyGov.in, a website launched by the government to engage citizens to get their suggestions and ideas over the online platform. 

As a part of this initiative, the Government planned to engage with citizens through social media and the above-mentioned website. 

7. Electronics Manufacturing 

This initiative promotes electronic manufacturing to reduce electronics imports from other countries like China. 

The Government set a goal of stopping electronics imports by 2020. 

The focused areas of development considered were Mobiles, Medical electronics, consumer electronics, smart card implementation, R&D activities, skill development in electronics development and many other projects that support electronics manufacturing. 

8. IT for Jobs 

This pillar focuses on skill development among the youth population and places them in the IT / ITeS sector. 

As a part of this initiative, the Government offers IT training to the youth population in villages and small towns. 

The projects related to this initiative also promotes the Indian BPO industry.

9. Early Harvest Programmes 

The digital projects to be implemented in the short duration were included in the early harvest programmes. 

Some of the projects include,

• Finding missing children through a national portal
• Biometric attendance for employees
• Public Wi-Fi hotspots 
• IT platform for Messages 
• Wi-Fi hotspots in all universities
• eBooks implementation in schools 
• Weather and disaster alerts through SMS 
• Secure email within Government 

The Nine Pillars of Digital India were planned and designed to simplify various government processes and empower the nation by implementing different information technology projects and e-governance strategies. 

Although the government has been enhancing the digital platform and delivering services effectively to the public, still the implementation of many services are in progress to reach common people all over the nation.