Voting Rights for Non-Resident Indians

Parliamentary elections are round the corner. A very important issue that goes unnoticed is the electoral role of NRIs, especially in this era when the world has become a global village. India has more than twenty million NRIs spread around the globe. In the countries around the Persian Gulf (GCC) alone, there are more than five million Indians working. One of the latest inventions in the use of technology is online voting. Gujarat is the first state in India to implement Internet voting in public elections in India. The first online election was successfully carried out in September 2010. Organizations advocating NRIs right to vote have pleaded before the election commission to make amendments and allow NRIs to register throughout the year and to register at the embassy or online, instead of registering in India. Three years have passed since the assurance given by the Prime Minister, of NRIs voting right. It is high time we check with the government of the initiative taken so far in this direction using RTI. In case of any negligence on their part, we can start signature campaigns on social network sites and build a pressure group, to amend laws accordingly.
Asif Moazzam, Saudi Arabia.