No doubt in the I-T age everyone has the right to information. We have dozens of electronic channels, radio stations, newspapers, magazines, internet and what not, yet the people are knowing less and less about the problems plaguing them. Within hours of the first phase of election on April 20 private television channels were flooded with the exit poll surveys suggesting as to how many seats different political parties are going to get if the same trend persists.

Surprisingly, a reputed psephologist-cum-television anchor, Prannoy Roy, informed the people to accept the result of exit poll with a pinch of salt as it had gone wrong three consecutive times in Great Britain and in the last US election which George Bush won by wafer thin majority. It has gone wrong in case of Bihar, Tamil Nadu, Chattisgarh and Rajasthan assembly elections in the past few years as well.

The question is not just what purpose does the exit polls serve if they go wrong so frequently. The more important issue is at what cost the listeners and readers are bombarded this information. Heaven would not have fallen down if we would not have known these faulty results--at times the channels were found contradicting each other.

On the other hand there was hardly any mention in media about thousands of IIT and CBSE examinees who got stranded or stuck up due to April 20 election at different places throughout the country. The screening tests of these two competitions were held on April 17 and 18 respectively. As the Election Commission had seized public transport for the election duty boys and girls returning home after appearing in the examination centres hundreds of kilometres away had a harrowing time while returning home.

Take the case of foreign minister, Yashwant Sinha's constituency, Hazaribagh, which, is not on the railway map of the country--and there are hundreds of such towns and thousands of villages. For those who have no vehicle of their own this town was completely cut off for about a week as almost all the buses have been seized for the election duty. Students returning from Kolkata, where they went for the exams, were left high and dry. Those appearing in the CBSE test had even more tough time as they had to cover this long distance twice within a week. The earlier date was April 11. But just minutes before the examinees reached the examination centres they were informed that the tests have been cancelled due to question leak in Delhi.

The media has no space left to highlight the predicament of hundreds of patients and women in the family way--many of them actually died--who could not make it from their villages to hospital not only because of the absence of transport facility due to election, but also because in most part of the country nothing can move on the day of polling. The strict police bandobast and barricading make it virtually impossible for the people to even bury or consign to flames anyone in the family who dies on election day or on its eve.

We are living in a unique type of democracy where hundreds of people had to die silently and unreported and their last rites had to be postponed for hours--even for a couple of days--because we had to exercise adult franchise. If one dares to venture out of any town and city on the election day one will find hundreds of passengers--men, women, children, young boys and girls--with luggage in their hands or on their heads and infant babies by the side walking 10, 20 or 30 kilometres to reach their destination because transport facilities are not available. These are very common sights, but we do not find any story or shot on them. Mark it this is the peak time of the marriage season in a large part of the country, yet this hardship did not make any news.

Our media pundits and the so-called western educated editors, bureau chiefs and special correspondents appear totally oblivious of these facts, therefore, they do not bring them to notice either through their writing or in the panel discussion on television.

A private channel highlighted a news about the closure of bank branches as their employees have been summoned by the Election Commission for the election duty. In many parts of the country banking service remained completely paralysed for one full week and that too in the first month of the financial year when statutory auditing is done. At many places bank employees were told to abandon their work and go for training for the election as this time they will have to handle the electronic voting machine, besides at places work as magistrate too. Even the LIC and GIC employees were pressed into service.

The same banks were supposed to keep the question papers of IIT and CBSE screening tests held only two and three days before the first phase of poll. Poor bankmen they now have to accept telephone bills and taxes too and a large number of queue is often seen outside bank branches as competitive exam forms are available there.

Election duty is mandatory. But the big question is what was the hurry for polls to be held in such a crucial month. Just for the sake of a few more seats everything has been thrown haywire. Still media is yet to come up with the figure as to how many crores have the country lost due to this move of holding election in the month of April. The Election Commission had its own argument. Even if the voters' list was not revised properly it was bound to hold election as Parliament was dissolved on February 6. It was, therefore, compelled to take the service of even the employees working in the financial institutions.

The ruling party might have postponed the general and railway budgets for its political gain. But before announcing election it never thought about the competitive exams and peak financial season. It thought about scheduling the cricket matches with Pakistan in such a way that one-dayers are played before Tests and that series is over before the election. But not about examination and finance.

With the number of government employees coming down and election process becoming more and more protracted and complicated the Election Commission had been left with no choice but to seek the service of other government departments. Not to speak of the employees of financial institutions in many places even the trucks used by the cooperative-run dairies were seized by the Election Commission. At many places in Bihar, one of the leading milk producing states, not a drop of milk could be procured from the cooperatives and dairies had to even suspend milk supply. This was an unprecedented move as be it flood, earthquake, bandh, rally etc nobody touches the vehicles of dairy nor is it that their employees pooled for the election duty. Incidentally this milk crisis is taking place when the marriage season is in full swing.

No doubt one will have to endure some hardship for the cause of democracy. But the way the early election has been thrust upon the people is simply unacceptable. The government in power appears to be totally unaware of the problems the country is facing by having election in April. They just want to come back to power as the GDP rate was much higher in the third quarter of the last financial year.

And the media, the fourth pillar of the democracy, chose to look the other way round. It remained engrossed first in cricket, then in the opinion poll and then in the exit poll.

Why just blame cricket, opinion and exit polls. The Press these days is repeatedly ignoring problems which the subalterns of the society are facing. Newspapers and television channels have perhaps never carried any story criticizing the money order charge which is ten per cent of the amount to be sent. This is because it is the working class which had to depend on it. A labour sending Rs 5,000 to his native village will have to shell out Rs 500 while a big businessman can transfer lakhs of rupees from one branch to the other by paying just a few bucks.

Perhaps to facilitated the call centres the ISD rate for distant United States and Canada has been reduced to Rs 7.20 per minute, but for the nearby Gulf country it is Rs 18.00. Diesel and kerosene prices rose by four times in the last few years of the NDA government, but that of petrol by just 10 or 15 per cent. Yet nothing is being debated or contested in the society by our intellectual elite. Even the statements of the opposition leaders in this regard are pushed in the inside pages of newspapers or completely blacked out. As the means of information are increasing the general people are becoming more and more ignorant.

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