Articles by Sanjay Kumar

Diversification of voters is not matched by a broadening of the social base of participants in politics. Active participants are still from the more privileged sections of society, with education and class being the determining factors. And although the OBCs have made an entry into active politics in recent years, dalits, adivasis, women and the poor still remain largely at the periphery. Thus, participation of more people in politics, as evidenced in recent elections, does not automatically ensure the entry of the less privileged sections into the political process.

Economic reforms initiated since the 1990s became an election issue in the 1996 general elections, when the Congress raised it in its manifesto. Later, the party's defeat and subsequent slide in parliament was attributed to its espousal of the themes of liberalisation and privatisation. This article analyses the results of surveys conducted after the three successive Lok Sabha elections of 1996, 1998 and 1999. While opinions on reforms differ across communities and categories of voters, increasing levels of awareness do not necessarily coincide with a support for reforms.

The indifferent success of the present system of primary education in India, which has left 30 million children out of schools, calls for a complete change of the method of delivery of education. The model discussed here has features that ensure flexibility, accountability and quality, which can help achieve the threefold objectives of elementary education - universal access, universal retention and universal achievement.

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The Gujarat elections threw up a landslide victory for the BJP proving numerous opinion and exit polls wrong. This article based on pre and post poll survey conducted by the CSDS tries to look at reasons behind the BJP�s stunning win across different regions of Gujarat, issues that affected the common man and trends in voting patterns of people from different social communities.