 Are we ready? Not yet. Okay, you're muted. Still not used to this. Well, so I was just wondering, are we ready? Not yet. Not yet. Nilesh is still. Some question will be joining in about 15 minutes. He had to grab up another meeting. Okay. So, is it going to be a moderator, you're moderating? Since there's the two of you, we thought this time no moderator. Okay. But somebody will have to conduct it, right? Yes, I will give the questions. What did I do? I'm not sure. Did I do anything? No, I think that was Nilesh, was it? How do I start my PPT? All right, so there's this green button that says share screen. Yes. And then in one of the windows your PPT should pop up. I'll have to start the PPT then. Only once you share it, then you can click the PPT format so it can be in not slideshow mode. We can see. Yeah, can you see? Yeah, we can. I think you have to go off the computer screen, you know? Or you could just click the slideshow mode, is that okay? That's what I was thinking because otherwise it's showing your full screen of your computer. Oh, it's not showing the PPT. Earlier one. This is still showing the upper portion and all that other than the slides. You want to click on slideshow? No, is it showing? It is showing the slides but it is also showing the top portion, you know. Okay, I think, yeah, now it's working. Yes, this is what, right, you got it. Yeah. Okay, yeah, we'll begin then. Yeah, start. Yeah, I'll do the introduction of the screen then. You're sliding, put it off. Otherwise it will be awkward. Okay, yeah. Hello, I am Shantal Almeda-Decosta. I work at the One Board project. One Board is an initiative to examine a diverse set of perspectives and inputs regarding the introduction and evolution of technology as part of elections. This project began in May 2021 with a focus on blockchains but now the scope has been brought in to include election reportage, criminality, citizen rights, technology design, constitutional powers and now disability rights. Mr. Nilesh Singit is a consultant on disability law. The state icon for Maharashtra and for nearly two decades has been involved in providing solutions, formulating policies, legal counseling and overall advocating and promoting the rights of disabled persons. Our other speaker, Mrs. Indrani Malkini is the chairman at VKAN, an organization that seeks to promote fairness, honesty, transparency and accountability in society by encouraging public participation. Previously, she was the convention and conferences manager at the Taj Palace Convention Hotel in Delhi. Over to Mr. Singit. Hello, can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Okay, a brief, I mean, thank you for my introduction. I'll be basically speaking about, I mean, you know, the UN, the rights, the UN Convention of Rights of Person with Disabilities and how it kind of helped us to kind of look at, I mean, you know, right to vote. I mean, when the public and answering into a public interest litigation that was filed and then how we kind of, you know, looked at changing the, I mean, the 1995 act to its present state of 2016. And the work that we've been doing, I mean, I'll start with, I mean, you know, the work that went into the filing of the litigation. And then the last part of, you know, the work I've been doing with Indrani and VKAN. And what we've done in the 2000, I think, Indrani and I started working much before 2019 elections. But that was the major culmination and, you know, all that work that we had put in kind of shown fruits. I mean, you know, in the last 2019 Maharashtra elections. So I just begin that human rights, I mean, you know, you have the universal declaration of human rights and then, you know, all those various rights. And the thing is that, you know, socioeconomic rights and political rights, I mean, political rights have more importance than socioeconomic rights. But unfortunately, accessibility comes under socioeconomic rights. But so in 1995 act, I mean, you know, it was riddled with this within economic capacity, wherever accessibility was mentioned. And in 2004, when I mean, looks like elections were just about to happen, Javed Abidi filed a public interest litigation in Supreme Court. But unfortunately, I mean, you know, nothing happened because the elections, I mean, you know, they just filed, I think, a week before the elections or something, there was nothing the Supreme Court could do. What they did was after the elections were over, they gave a set of guidelines as to what needs to be done. So the first thing, I'll just, these are the civil political rights. And this is what the Constitution says. I mean, you know, everybody has a right to vote. And I mean, you know, let's not go into the disqualification of unsound mind that actually, you know, when we come to that, I'll speak about, I mean, you know, how people with disabilities can vote. Then the people with representation act and all this, then the present 2016 act, I mean, you know, that which says, so basically, that, you know, the barriers for participation is making is that, you know, attitudes of people. I mean, I first cast my vote in, I think, 1988, when I just turned 18, and I think there are some looks of my election. And when I went to the polling station, they said, why do you want to bother voting? So that was the basic attitude of people. I mean, you know, I mean, you're a person with disability. I mean, what difference is going to make? Then there's the whole thing, you know, lack of information. I mean, you know, where, where the polling booths, I had a tough time kind of finding my polling booth. I know, you know, actually every elections, except the last two, three elections. And then the major problem was transportation. Unfortunately, for me, my election booth is just bang opposite my house. I mean, every year that's happening. But I can tell you about my friends with disabilities. I mean, they, I mean, going from your house to, I mean, another place is actually very difficult. And on the election day, all the public transport is closed. Taxes are closed. I mean, you know, it's actually become very difficult to go. Then polling stations are not accessible. I mean, you know, they are either on the first floor, second floor, third floor, and the stairs are very difficult to, I mean, you know, climb. Then even if there are lifts in that building, that lift is closed on that particular day. And I mean, it's actually very difficult to convince the authorities to kind of open it. They say that if you open it, everybody will use it and there's a lot of vandalism happening. No, we don't want to kind of, you know, risk that. And the election staff is poorly trained. I mean, we've been doing a lot of trainings last, I mean, four, five years. And that shows that I've shown, I mean, good results. But previously, I'm talking about all the elections. So, and, and that was the major problem. So how does one tackle that? So UN convention has given, UN convention, there are various rights, accessibility. I mean, no, as one of your top rights. I mean, it's at the height. I mean, and I mean, it uses a twin track approach. So every aspect of, I mean, you know, right that a person with disability has, say, right to employment, right to employment is, I mean, you know, useless without accessibility. I mean, and right to education is useless without accessibility. Same, same holds true with political, I mean, rights, where you go and vote. So the UNCRPD is very particular. So every section, they have seen that accessibility is built into, I mean, whatever people with disabilities do. So in 2004, after every Lok Sabha election, the first election that usually happened is Maharashtra that goes to elections. I mean, in 2004, when the Supreme Court had given these various guidelines, first thing we went and did was meet the election commission here in Maharashtra. I think at that time it was Mr. Madan. I mean, if I remember correctly, we went to him when the date of the election was announced and showed him the Supreme Court order saying that, boss, these are the things that the Supreme Court has asked, what are you doing about it? And he was kind of, you know, had no clue. And we gave him some time saying, you know, please look into it, what all you can do. And we had gone with the entire group. I think, you know, around 20, 30 people with disabilities representing various organizations, blind people with blind, hearing impaired, I mean, people with cerebral palsy, I mean, mental retardation, I mean, you name it. I mean, I mean, at that time, 95 act was there to save us seven disabilities that were listed. So all the people representing the seven disabilities visited him. And he gave us, said, give us a week, we'll get back. And one week later, we saw that, you know, he had done nothing. So the only request that we had was to, I mean, you know, approach the court. So we approached the court. And some of the prayers that we gave, I mean, you know, RAM should be provided at every booth provision of identification of candidates to vary, you know, Braille should be made. At that time, there was no electronic voting machine. I mean, you know, 2000, I think 2009, the electronic voting machine came into existence. Till that time, it was not there. So how do a blind person go and vote? See, one of the things that the UNCRPD says, and even our constitution says, is that everybody has a right to ask their ballot in secret. And when it comes to personal disabilities, I mean, there are some people with disabilities who need help. And most of the time, people who end up helping are people on the election officers or somebody around. I mean, you know, family members were not allowed at that time. Now, now things have changed. So what happened, you know, this, this was in Bombay High Court, and Justice Chandrachud and Jalveer Vandari, I mean, it was to Judge Bench. And I mean, you know, they said that unless the election does not look into the rights of people with disabilities, the court is going to postpone the election indefinitely. So I mean, you know, the election commission has no, I mean, you know, alternative but to kind of, you know, given to some of our demands. So one of the first things that happened was 9,000 odd polling booths in and around Bombay city and Thane districts, I mean, you know, were provided with, you know, braille galleting paper and ramps were provided. In fact, Raju and I, Raju was my colleague at the India Center for Human Rights and Law, he's blind. And he and I kind of, you know, I think for continuously two weeks, we must have done at least 500, 600 audits. I mean, you know, visited all kinds of public booths. I mean, so they're not public polling booths. And see, I mean, you know, what could be done and a rough kind of report was provided. And most of them were made disabled friendly. But see, unfortunately, what happens is most of these polling booths that are designated are either government buildings, educational institutes like schools or colleges. And I mean, you know, things like that. So these places are actually inaccessible. And many a times they are made temporarily accessible only for the elections. So once the election is over, they remove everything. I mean, you know, ramp, whatever I think they do. So I mean, you know, we need to look at the access as a very holistically in the sense that if it is an educational institute, then I mean, you know, I'm sure they'll be students with disabilities who would be studying that. So why not provide ramps for them already? And all the facilities that are required. So this is something that I mean, you know, happens every election. And I think election commission also spends a lot of money on this. So as per the affidavit, I mean, you know, priority was given to people with disabilities to stand in queues. And I mean, you know, disabled voters who allowed the facility with companion, I mean, they could choose their own companion and to help them cast vote and start on duty but provide assistance to bring the wheelchair. I mean, you know, wheelchair is what I mean, you know, not all polling booths at that time had wheelchair. But now I think they have and in fact, we even use CD. I mean, I will show the photograph which I mean, you know, we did with the weekend. And I mean, again, these are the same thing it's kind of repeating. So yeah, I mean, this is I mean, you know, the ballot paper that I mean, you know, happened. I mean, in fact, this is my friend Ketan Kothari and you can see his wife Mukta. Both are blind. And I mean, you know, what when they said that, you know, provide braille facility for a blind, I mean, everybody was kind of flummoxed. How do we do it? And the thing with, you know, Indian voting is that each constituency, it can vary from say 20 to 100, I mean, you know, candidates. And I mean, there is no standard format of how one could do it on braille. So I mean, you know, a lot of organizations, you know, we sat and kind of brainstorm. And finally, you know, somebody came up with the idea said that whatever is on the voting machine, those candidate list, they could be kind of printed separately on a paper on braille. So that was kind of taken up by I mean, you know, all the blind organizations, whoever had great braille printers, by the way, braille printers are very expensive. I mean, you know, it's not like your regular printer. I mean, you know, they, I mean, at that time they cost in lakhs. So all these organizations kind of sat together, I mean, you know, overnight they printed, I mean, a lot of, I think, 2009 mentioned for thing, but at the end, I think a little more than 1000 were able to provide braille sheets. So this is one of the polling booths. And you can see that, you know, my friend is kind of looking, I mean, reading it on braille, and then kind of, you know, registering himself. And then his wife, Mukta, they're kind of, you know, using that and the corresponding numbers were kind of given. So like, you know, one on, I mean, you know, so so as a, as a kind of, you know, a side thing, that good thing that happened during this PIL was that, you know, Rams were made of the high court. I mean, there was a previous PIL that was filed on BST buses. And there that said that, you know, there should be a ramp, but the kind of ramp that they built was kind of more like a very steep rocket launcher kind of a thing. I mean, you know, people fell and had injuries. And I mean, you know, one of the lawyers said that, you know, instead of helping people with disabilities, you're creating more people with disabilities with this ramp. So this kind of was again brought to notice of the judges while hearing this case. And then they kind of, you know, said that this time just, I mean, you know, there has to be a ramp and a toilet. So a friend of mine, Abhishek Ray, who is an architect, he kind of designed this ramp and on World Human Rights Day, that is 10th of December 2004, this ramp was inaugurated by the Chief Justice. So this is, I mean, you know, one of the good things that happened. I mean, I mean, you know, go back. So I'll come to the next part phase where we've done with, I mean, no, we can, like you said that, you know, I mean, you know, we can kind of, you know, recommend in my name for state icon and I've been the state icon for, I mean, quite a long time now, I think. Even 2000, previous to 2019 election also, I think I was the state icon. I don't know. I mean, so been there for some time and I mean, being the icon actually kind of, you know, helped a lot to kind of get a lot of things done. So one of the things that we've been doing, I mean, you know, you heard Smitha speak, you know, a few days back. And one of the things that is very important when it comes to election is the data. I mean, you know, where do you get the data of how many people with disabilities are there? The census gives a very vague figure. I mean, there is, I mean, you know, there's no bifurcation of like, you know, how many people with particular disability state or whatever area that is not there. So I mean, you know, how does one do it? So what we kind of did was we kind of had a lot of meetings with, I mean, the election commissioner, the disability commissioner, and a lot of other organizations working with disability. And there are, you know, disability commissioner has, I mean, you know, a lot of data based on various organizations that are there, you know, any organization that works for disability has to be registered with the election, not for the disability commissioner. And I mean, no, and these organizations have a list of people with disabilities who have taken their services. So there is, I mean, the national trust, national trust is, I mean, you know, another act on disability. And there's a national trust organization also that works for people with cerebral palsy, autism, mental retardation and multiple disabilities. So they also maintain their own database. So all these kinds of, you know, we tried to kind of, you know, get all this, you know, collect all this database and gave it to the, sorry, this time the election commissioner. And we also kind of spoke to a lot of organizations. I mean, you know, call them up, held meetings, and, you know, ask them to kind of go and vote. I mean, see, the entire process, I mean, you know, if people with disability need to kind of, you know, get any rights or, I mean, you know, they have to be visible. Unless you are visible, I mean, you know, things don't happen. I know it's a cash 22 situation. I mean, you know, you are not visible because things are not accessible. And I mean, you know, things are not accessible because you are not visible. So we have to kind of break this vicious circle. So the only way to do is, you know, spread the word get as many people to vote. So meetings with the state commissioner. I mean, you know, we've used media also a lot. We, I mean, you know, we use our blogs, Twitter and even election commissioner use that. And I mean, you know, and whatever journalists we knew, we kind of ask them to kind of, you know, make right articles, previous election saying that what the election commission is doing. And I mean, ask people with disabilities to come and vote and take interviews and all that. I'll be showing some photographs where we also ask some of our friends to kind of give interviews. I mean, good experiences, they had prior elections. I mean, every election has been riddled with some complication or the other. But last election, I think was the best of all of them. So yeah, this is some of the photographs, I mean, you know, where we've met various commissioners and disability organizations. And some of the media support that we've got to get people with disability, I mean, spread the word kind of a thing. And we also like, I mean, I said, we did audits. So I mean, you know, these are some of the checklists and things that we've took into, I mean, there have been, in fact, if I'm not mistaken, Indrani, we had also worked on the training module also, I think, I mean, you know, which we gave it to the election commissioner to kind of use that to kind of train the various, you know, pulling both officials. And in fact, we also went and trained a lot of people. I mean, I think we had gone to Panvel and, you know, not only, I mean, the state elections and the sub-election, we also kind of been involved in municipal elections. I think the next municipal election that is going to be there, that sort of, you know, a lot of work cut out for us. These are the some of the barrier free entry ramps. I mean, you know, what kind of gradient ought to be, because when you say ramp, they just do any sort of thing, then actually it becomes very difficult to person with disabilities to kind of use that. So and passages and things like that. So there is an entire checklist. And we also kind of looked at, I mean, you know, electronic voting machines and I mean, you know, they are up to the standard. And I mean, you know, and even got a lot of blind people also to kind of look at it. And I mean, you know, have them other blind, I mean, organization train these blind people to kind of use that. I mean, you just can't go to a polling booth and say, you know, how do I do it? It doesn't work. I mean, you know, all those things need to be taken care of. So we've been kind of working on that. And also the election app, I mean, you know, the government came up with the app. I mean, it's pretty decent app. But initial, I mean, you know, versions were very unfriendly. I mean, if it catered to some disability, then, you know, other disabilities have problems. So over the clock, I mean, there are other organizations like DRA and I mean, you know, other people, I've been kind of involved with them. They have been kind of doing all this checking and, you know, I kind of gave my two bits also on that. So we've been kind of, you know, overall looking at that. And finally, the app that came out in 2019 was pretty good. I mean, there were some glitches, but I think, you know, they started out a lot of things. So and this election, I mean, you know, 2019 elections, we've been kind of, you know, working, you know, weekend has been kind of trying to look at getting people with disabilities to come out of their house and go and vote. And for that, we need transport. So easy move kind of, you know, gave their, I mean, you know, entire fleet, you know, in and around Bombay. And they kind of, you know, helped us. And I mean, there was a helpline that was set up to kind of, you know, look into all that. I mean, you know, you had to just call them up the helpline saying that, you know, I want to vote. And then, I mean, everything was organized, depending on, you know, the schedule of other voters and all that. So in this photograph, you can see my grandfather and me. My grandfather, I mean, you know, unfortunately expired last year due to COVID. He was 100. So, I mean, like, you know, he's, that was also the election commission to got a lot of mileage on that with, I mean, you know, was a centenary kind of voting. So it not only helped people like me, but even very senior citizens also to go and vote. And easy move kind of, you know, did that. I mean, you know, they, they work round the clock and trying to see as many people with disabilities go and vote. And even we can helpline, you know, played a big role in sorting all these issues. So this is a CD. I mean, you know, it's a, I mean, you know, contraption where you, one can sit and people can pull you up. There are two versions available. One is mechanized and one is, I mean, you know, manual. So I think I'm bad with names. Sorry, if I spoke his name up. Jamshed Dalal, I think, if I'm not mistaken. Jamshed Dalal kind of provided his CD free. I mean, quite a lot of polling booths had it. So I mean, you know, this, this was, I mean, you know, one of the things only happened in Bombay. But I mean, that was one of the things. And 2019 Lok Sabha election was, I mean, personally for me was pretty bad because, you know, it was on the first floor or second floor and they had to carry me up. And it was a terrible experience. And finally, I had to kind of ask my brother to kind of chip in and help me be carried because these guys were not able to carry me. They had no clue how to carry a person with disabilities. In fact, I almost fell down from the chair and that was kind of a bad experience. So, I mean, you know, as an icon, I mean, you know, one can give your experience. So one of the things that we said that this time I had a terrible experience. And the next, I mean, 2019 Maharashtra election, which I think happened around November or December, the election commission did a very good thing. They brought, I mean, all the polling booths on the ground floor. I think more than 5000 polling booths kind of, you know, they kind of got it on ground floor. So that was one thing. 2019 Lok Sabha election, otherwise also for a lot of people in Maharashtra was a bad experience. I mean, but 2019 Maharashtra election, Lok Sabha was a bad, but Maharashtra elections was, you know, very good. So I think this time, I mean, you know, we were able to kind of push a lot of things. I mean, there were a lot of people in the disability sector, they wanted to kind of take drastic action saying that 2019 Lok Sabha was bad, we need to do something, we should do this, that we said, no, once the system is in place, I mean, you know, if you kind of work with it very closely, a lot of things can be achieved. And that was, I mean, you know, fortunately, did go well for us. And it was a good experience. Yeah, thank you. Now, since marketing will be speaking about her experience, working with weekend. Good afternoon, friends. This is a subject very close to all of us. And as an organization, Nilesh has been part of our organization for quite a while. And he has touched upon most of the points. But let me just share a few thoughts and elaborate a little bit on few of the things that he has touched upon. Now, as a societal organization, we can like to address issues of inclusive accessibility of all the built infrastructure, transportation, public utilities and other objects of public use for the citizens and voters, thereby voters. And this is in with particular respect to all the electoral processes. Now, when the Sugama Bharat was launched, as you would know in 2015, September 2015, September, it was launched, I was privileged to be invited. And it became because this was a flagship, you know, campaign for persons with disabilities. And we made a pledge that we would work for the accessible India campaign and merge it also with the Digital India campaign, because ultimately both have to come together. So that's something we worked on for over the years. Our involvement with election has been since 2002. And in the forthcoming elections of the Mumbai Municipal Corporation, which is scheduled to be held latter part of this year, will be our 15th election. And when I say 15th, I mean it includes the various local body elections, the Lok Sabha elections and the Vidhan Sabha elections. Now, working with two autonomous bodies, and also at with sync, you know, the Lok Sabha and the Vidhan Sabha elections as perhaps most people may or may not know is handled by the Election Commission of India. But the municipal elections or the local body elections are not held by the Election Commission of India, but by the State Election Commission, which is also an autonomous body. The connection here between the two commissions is that the electoral roles which are the domain of the Election Commission of India is also used or has to be used manually by the State Election Commission. Now, here comes the interesting part. All the infrastructure has to be by the State where the elections are being held, all the cities, the urban and rural areas. So you know the issue of accessibility for a voter indeed for a person with disability or even senior citizens who then have issues of disability due to age, perhaps due to an ailment or various other things. So ultimately, as a society, we need to look at all infrastructure at all systems with an eye towards the person with disability, because then those who do not have a disability will not have an issue. I think that is the point where we begin with and that's where we should head to. I must say that in so many ways, it is moving towards that. There's much to talk about elections. It's not a subject that can get done with in a short while. But let me highlight a few points which Nilesh has also spoken about. It's important to synthesize that persons with disability need to enroll as voters and that they can and they should. Now for that purpose, a huge amount of awareness is needed. To a great extent, we can has been very much in the forefront on that issue. In fact, it was very interesting that during the Lok Sabha elections, I was approached by a magazine called White Print. I don't know if many of you know about it, but this is a lifestyle magazine which is meant only for blind people because it's printed in braille. So it coincided with the time of the Lok Sabha election. So I took the opportunity to give an article in that paper. It was a unique experience and when the magazine was given to me, I was at a loss because I couldn't read it myself because it was in braille. But the fact is that there is a lifestyle magazine meant for people who are blind, one of the disabilities because when we look at people with disabilities, we look at them apart which we shouldn't do. What we need to do is to look at people with disabilities that they just have some special needs and we just have to make certain provisions there. But they're no different and they have needs, the same things that any able-bodied person needs. So you go on holidays, you go for an excursion, you have all of the other things that any able bodied person does and therefore everything should be geared towards making it possible for people with disabilities to access and to be able to enjoy their time. The same goes for elections because that's your first right as a citizen of India. Now, having said that, enrolling of the voters and then getting them to the polling stations to vote, two aspects. Getting them to enroll, there is a lot of work which has been done by the election commission. We have been part of such work for quite a long time. If I take the city of Mumbai every urban and I must here clarify that our work is primarily towards the urban sector, it's the urban field that we work in, not the rural structure or the rural side. So every urban city, mega city, township has got a particular strength and it would be the best thing to do is to leverage that strength. Now, if I take the mega city of Mumbai, what is the unique feature of Mumbai? That is the housing society concept or the cooperative housing society concept. So this was fully utilized by us and I worked with the CEO Maharashtra that is the chief electoral officer who is always nominated by the election commission. So every state has a CEO. So therein we work together to bring about an amendment by way of which all societies that is all cooperative housing societies by virtue of them being a society all the managing committee became voluntary boot level officers of the state of Maharashtra for elections. So therefore when you need data, when you need to access all the members, you don't need to make different arrangements or you know individual arrangements. You give all, when I say you I mean the CEO Maharashtra gives whatever they wish to give all the documents or even for collecting data, you give it and use the managing committee of the housing society. The housing society is a legal entity therefore if they certify certain facts or certain data, it is deemed to be authentic and legally binding and that helps for purity of a voter role of the electoral role. Similarly, when you need to and make announcements or you have certain facilities which you are giving. So your point of contact for every society say a society may have thousand members but you approach the managing committee and you have approached the entire society. This has worked very successfully in Mumbai and there's a lot of work that has gone into it and of course there is always room for improvement which we will be carrying out and that goes for all elections. Then we come to the point of the transport which Nilesh has already touched upon. Now this company EasyMove as he mentioned they are committed to providing vehicles which are really superb for people on a wheelchair and with any disability and when they had first approached me I sent them to Nilesh for him to authenticate it. How well does it serve the purpose? When he certified it I was delighted and I said okay that's it we are going to start this off for the Lok Sabha elections which is what was done for 2019 elections and now in order to give the transportation comes the other part of the logistics which briefly Nilesh had mentioned about the you know where are the disabled voters. So our major task was taken up to map all the people who are voters eligible voters with people you know persons with disabilities and that came about it was done by the government it was done by the social welfare organization I mean that organ and we were part of it and that exercise was done superbly really very well done. So we have this data stored and that will obviously keep on getting you know improved upon because when you have to give transport then you also have to do the routing you have to know where the polling stations of each of these voters are so it's not just a bus routing there's a lot of you know integrity that has to be worked out which I did I must here say that I am trained in logistics and also I've been instrumental in having the state school bus policy done so therefore based on some of the formula that I had done earlier we transferred that for this purpose and it did work very well we did have a helpline which was manned by EasyMorph because it made it that much easier the entire as you let me also share that when you have elections it's all the districts that is the collectors become the officers in charge and therefore each of the collector if you take the city of Mumbai which has got two parts to it that is the Mumbai city district and the Mumbai suburban district so they got involved and all in all we all work together and magic happens and success happens when we are able to join hands and work together which is what we did the other part that also was equally important if not more was the training of the staff who are going to conduct the elections and I don't mean just the officers who were in the office site but those who are manning the polling stations the polling booths and all of that we did do we do have a training module it is Nilesh who is holding it and that also training with it of course it's never going to be a one-off so therefore it is an ongoing process and it will be improved upon because the more you interact with the officers we get to know what difficulties they face and what are the things that we need to make easier for them then comes the coordination between various government agencies let us take a small example of say parking when you're bringing a vehicle to a polling station where you have multiple boats now when you have a person with disability and or a person who's a senior citizen but obviously is unable to walk and therefore on a wheelchair now they need certain specific transport help at the site of disembarkation and boarding so therefore provision has to be made and they may or may not use a public vehicle or or say a vehicle being provided by the election commission's office in the various places they may bring their own vehicle and therefore certain provisions have to be made now those coordination were also done and by and large it worked well of course the scope of improvement which we will be addressing in the upcoming elections too. Having done that because this is such a vast subject it's difficult to you know just to make it into a small capsule so I won't go further into it but I will touch upon the other aspect which Nilesh brought in and that is about the wheelchair which climbs stairs and brings you down now it is battery operated and also manually it can be operated it was hugely successful and this was given free for select you know polling stations and it by by the vendor and it was very well executed people raved about to those who used it of course Nilesh had already died it and had authenticated it and thereafter it was used. I am hoping that in the forthcoming elections we can set aside a budget but we can't expect it of being a free service all the time so the vendor needs to be compensated for and because they also give their staff because not everyone will be able to you know get trained to use these wheelchairs. It looks very easy but when you have a precious cargo of a person with disability seated then you have that added responsibility of ensuring his or her safety so that is something that we will work on and I'm sure that it will improve. Whilst on a platform like yours or one vote we can't but address the issue of digital accessibility because as much as physical accessibility is a huge requirement digital accessibility in today's world is without a doubt the most important factor so because most of the things are geared towards digitally whether you're using an app whether you're using other means for digital purpose all of these require a lot of training and making it more robust and more user-friendly. So to that extent also we had been working since 2015 again to make vegan IT accessible and a lot of work has gone into it it's not only you know specific to elections but for every single aspect because you know election time is when everybody gets involved it's not that it's only the election commission because each and every department is election time for them because everyone has something to give. Similarly I come from the non-profit sector which is a non I mean the NGO sector similarly every NGO no matter what their primary work is when it comes to election it is everybody's baby because we are Indian citizens everybody has to vote irrespective of what work you do where you are and which organization you're part of so it's a question of collectively or coming together and I'm sure that good things happen and will keep on happening so I'm very very happy Shantel for giving me this opportunity to share some of our work and there's much to share and I hope that in time to come we may stay connected and perhaps do more things together. Nilesh is of course part of our family and that remains so let's join hands who knows we will achieve things that we never thought we could. Thank you once again if there are questions I'll be happy to share my thoughts or answer to the best of my ability. Thank you. Some question has a question. I yes thank you Shantel I have a question and I also have to express my gratitude for our speakers in this session as well as Smita in the previous one primarily because together these two sessions allow us to get a glimpse into the stupendous amount of work investment of time and individuals who make the change because they engage with the election commission, the stakeholders, the state and not everything gets reflected in mainstream press which is unfortunate but I think if we are able to sort of get more engagement it's it's very nice to be able to see momentum effect change not just in how the voting process becomes better but also ensuring that we stick to the idea that every vote matters we simply cannot have voters left behind and in that reference frame I wanted to ask a lot of the work that has been done so far focuses on the act of being present at a polling booth and then casting and recording your vote the election commission has also expressed deep desire to address the deficit where close to around I think 40 percent of citizens are unable to vote in their constituencies because they are remote and they also want to transition into a more digital mobile app-based systems and there have been small experiments in the recent past so I was actually going to ask in terms of how do you see the engagement increasing or what are the kind of changes do you think need to happen to be able to ensure that now if this transition happens we are more inclusive the process is more equity oriented than all the work that had needed to be done to play sort of catch up from the time election started and I'm not specifically addressing to any of the speakers but whoever wants to start up please do well let me share a few points here no doubt that systems will have to be that's why I spoke about the digital part that one of the exercises that we did was you know the armed forces the armed forces they keep moving so they their names very often does not get reflected where they are and therefore they are not able to vote always postal ballot is there it's the same goes for the police but of course police force is in a specific area but the armed forces they keep moving so that's an exercise which we did do in Mumbai for the 2019 elections and it was initiated with the Indian Navy because the naval base there's a strong presence in Mumbai so we took it upon ourselves to work with the Navy that is with the collectors and the entire role of all the voters of the western region were authenticated and put on the voter list so they were they were enabled to cast their vote so a similar thing we should look to seeing that which are the sections which are left aside due to other reasons and not just as you know becoming a voter you may be a voter but if you are not able to vote in your constituency then there is an issue so I think one of the things that has come about is that the different constituencies suppose you have moved to another constituency how easy and how quickly can you ensure that you are able to vote there or do you need to go back to your parent constituency etc these are areas which we need to work a lot more on so we first of all need to identify and once all these are identified then we need to find a sustainable solution to each one of them which is doable it's not that it is not doable electronic voting on the other hand you know like it has been talked about that if you can do an online voting but then that's fraught with a whole lot of other challenges and unless those are addressed you know the voting is it is supposed to be private it's not supposed to be known by anyone and your identity cannot be hijacked and all sorts of things so you can't have false voting you can't have duplicate voting etc so that needs a lot of looking into I know that there has been a clamor for online voting but it's not as easy to ensure all these security aspects as maybe some have articulated in the past so I think we have to look into those as well I don't know if I have been able to answer all but at least these were some things I thought I would share. Yeah Edie I think one of the ongoing streams of conversations we have been having in this project is the concept of agency and privacy and secrecy that current voting processes allow and how do you maintain that in an online app-based system while also being able to resist coercion the primary thing and also being able to maintain the principles of the democratic process that we have at this point so yeah it's a challenge because the need is compelling the implementation of a solution that meets that need is not actually as simple as the general discourse makes it out to be. Now I'm not going to try and put SQ Masood on a spot but he did often bring up the question equity and and inclusiveness previously in our sessions and I wanted to check if he would have any remarks that he wants to me. I'm sorry I didn't get the last part. So SQ Masood who is there on and as a participant today he's been involved extensively in citizens rights out in Tarangana state and and he's been very strong advocate of also examining this change proposals critically so that the dilution of the electoral processes happened. They just wanted to check I mean we are close to time on our meeting so I wanted to check if he had any remarks that he wanted to share. If you are able to speak you could go ahead. Thank you so much sir but I think I was trying to understand the whole issue so right now I don't have any remarks to say so next time I will show asking you. I would like to say something on equity and inclusion. See the various other modes of I mean you know casting would be a postal ballot or something electronic. I think when it comes to personal disabilities what it might happen is that you know they would be kind of you know forced with that option I mean you know maybe postal ballot or something electronic and now what is happening is that you know with what we've been able to achieve I mean whatever little we've been able to achieve a lot of people with disabilities are coming out of their house I mean you know for them it is like you know going on a picnic I mean you know once a time I mean you know they just get out their house many people are not able to do that so I think you know this I mean it's good that you know all those things could be worked out but I mean you know finally it should be the option that person selects I mean you know that if that person wants to go and vote then all the facilities should be provided and just saying that you know disabled person we have this option you know sit to do it from home or whatever that should not be there so that is what I feel that you know sometimes these new technologies can be a a bane in the sense that you know you can do it very easily and I mean you know I mean you lose out now like I mean you know I do a lot of shopping I used to do quite a bit of shopping now everything is Amazon and Flipkart I haven't seen a brick and mortar shop for a long time and Covid has been responsible for that but I mean you know in other ways so I mean you know things we become I mean you know very dependent on technology and that can be a little drawback I mean I believe in options thank you. Adding to what Dilesh said let me bluntly say it voting is our right but it's also primarily our duty so we must also each one of us make our best effort to ensure that we do go out and vote because in urban areas voter apathy is very much an issue. And I think he raises a very critical point that in a different way we had discussions in other sessions in the some of the webinars we have organized that there is a need for choice it cannot be one size fixer and if one option is digital voting that is based on app or a site or a website or anything it has to be secure and provide the same values and attributes that physical voting provides privacy agency prevention of coercion your vote should be correctly cast it should be recorded as fast and it should be able to tally it into the official tally that is in the results and all of that so one of the I think one of the key conclusions we have been slowly driving towards is that often these new fangled approaches or technology interventions are presented as a form of convenience in the messaging the question of voting is not about convenience the question of voting is are we able to continuously enable the right and ensure that every citizen who is entitled to vote gets to vote and I think it's a key topic that whenever in newspapers and media and TV channels like for instance this time when the Uttar Pradesh elections were happening it was tracking Twitter about internet voting or remote voting at one point there were over 1500 tweets in an hour asking the election commission the prime minister this the former CM the CM of the current CM obviously but the rioted election he was also the CM they have to enable remote voting because we want to vote and I think that that that part gets diluted and missed in all the conversations that voting is not like doing an Amazon purchase on a web or a mobile app or doing a banking transaction using a mobile app it's a far too serious business and the tolerances for failure are far lower I mean if you make a make if you make a bad payment through a mobile app or something you can still roll it back through dispute handling how are you going to handle that through when you do a voting process and right now even with the EVM VVPAC it's very difficult for a normal citizen to actually handle disputes not to mention the fact that there is a fine associated with a wrong dispute claiming race so this is an extensive topic and sorry I don't want to fill up the air time much but we do feel strongly about the need for choice and and the need to step away from one-size-fits-all solutions thanks Akashan I think yeah now we have come to the end of our time um many thanks to our speakers and