http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/nri/contributors/contributions/somu-kumar/Times-100-poll-and-the-Indian-connection/articleshow/19509331.cms
EXCERPTS >From an Indian perspective, this list has featured some high profile Indian politicians/activists in the final 100 in past few years, including Mamata Banerjee in 2012, Aruna Roy in 2011 andManmohan Singh<http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Manmohan-Singh> in 2010 in its 'Politicians and Revolutionary' category. The initial list published each year, having more than 100 nominees, has seen a handful of Indians, but they have mostly failed to make it to the final 100 list. Narendra Modi <http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Narendra-Modi> is one such nominee, who ended up on the wrong side of this poll history. He topped the list with most number of 'no way' votes in the 2012 list. He pulled in 256,828 'yes' votes compared to 266,739 'no way' votes, making him one of the only two candidates in top 15 to poll more 'no' votes than 'yes'. The other such personality was Bashar Assad of Syria. The result must have stung pretty hard for a politician known to have a huge bunch of ardent internet followers. This only goes on to prove that it is very important for politicians in this poll to not just have many admirers, but have fewer critics. Modi was one of the 195 candidates in the initial list of 2012 but didn't figure in the final 100, which was a victory of sorts for his critics. Now, coming to the 2013 poll, RTI activist and Aam Aadmi Party<http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Aam-Aadmi-Party> founder Arvind Kejriwal<http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Arvind-Kejriwal> is the lone Indian in the initial list of 151 nominees. He is currently leading in the second spot with more than 63,000 votes but the interesting point to note is his 'yes to no' vote ratio: 95% 'yes' as compared to 5% 'no' votes. It is an interesting statistics, given the general theory about politicians' voting ratio in this poll. The other two politicians in the list - Mohamed Morsi, who is leading the list currently and Bashar Assad, who is in the third spot - confirm to the theory and have more 'no' votes than 'yes'. So, how did Arvind Kejriwal buck the trend? Kejriwal has been in national spotlight for a good part of last three years from the beginning of his 'India against Corruption' movement in 2011, though his stellar work with the RTI campaign came much before that. He succeeded, along with Anna Hazare and others, in channelizing the popular anger of people against the growing number of mind-numbing scams in India, to create a popular draft bill called the Jan Lokpal through which, corruption could be reduced significantly, and the lives of common men made better. While the ruling politicians and their core supporters perceived him as stubborn, unflinching and even arrogant at times, the general public saw him as a steadfast general who kept the campaign on course. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "humanrights movement" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/humanrights-movement?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
