Times of India’s Lead India campaign doesn’t get it

I am surprised at the illogical issues that Times of India’s Lead India is trying to raise. One of thier advertisements states that since 75% of our population is below the age of 40 but has only 7% representation in Parliament, the following should be considered:

(a) Reservation for the youth in Parliament
(b) Retirement age of politicians
(c) National Youth Policy

My question is that is the answer to above the problem the solution to our problems. My answer is no. First, it is not a question of young or old people, it is a question of people being honest and doing the job they are assigned to do. We have young people like Varun Gandhi in politics and you see where he has ended up. What about his attitude and thinking?

Times of India (TOI) considers itself as a newspaper for the young but look at how it is thinking. It is suggesting reservation as a solution. But Mr. TOI why are we just thinking about the youth. Why stop at age? Lets reserve the Lok sabha seats by age, gender, cast, religion and so on. Also, lets take the idea further. Lets reserve the circulation of newspapers according to age, caste, religion and so on. Why should Mr. TOI have more circulation than other newspapers. Reservation is not the solution to anything. There are no barriers for youths to contest elections but I don’t think youths are interested. This is not a viable career option and that is why youth don’t get into it. The ones who do are either the criminal elements or sons and daughters of existing politicians.

What National Youth Policy is Mr. TOI talking about? Do we have to have a government policy for youth? What will we have in this policy?

One thing that makes sense to me is that there should be a retirement age for politicians. Some of the politicians are just too old and they should have retired quite some time back. But still I don’t think there should be a law limiting the age for elected politicians. Since they are elected by the people, the people should have the choice to elect or not elect. If we exercise our vote properly, then we will not elect very old people who can’t run the country properly.

Now if youths want to do something about the country, they need to do two things which are as follows:

(a) Contest elections.
(b) Not just vote but vote for the right people.

Mr. TOI, we don’t need reservations.

avinash narula