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July 18, 2008
Political Hullabaloo
Fails to Capture Gen X's Interest
By Azera Rahman
New Delhi
The tricky numbers game in the July 22 trust vote in parliament
which will decide the fate of the Manmohan Singh government may be
hogging the media headlines, but most of the country's youth don't
seem to be bothered about it.
Rohan Medhi, a third-year student in Delhi University, for instance,
said he had been religiously following all the political
developments in the media - but only initially.
"After sometime I lost interest. Probably it was until the Left
pullout that I used to read the newspapers front to back. After that
it was back to my usual reading style, first the sports page at the
back and then everything else," Medhi told IANS.
There are just four days left for the do-or-die trust vote in
parliament which will decide whether Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's
government survives. This situation has arisen over the India-US
civil nuclear deal which the ruling Congress-led United Progressive
Alliance (UPA) wants to push through, but which has made the Left
withdraw its crucial support to the government.
Even as allegations of horse-trading and underhand deals are being
made everyday ahead of the confidence motion July 22, Indian youths
in colleges, universities and even those who are working seem not to
care.
Tanvi Shekhar, a student of Christ College, Bangalore, said she
tries to follow the latest in the Indian political world but often
loses interest simply because she doesn't understand the
nitty-gritty of certain events.
"I have read about it, but I am still very unsure as to what the
nuclear deal is all about! What are its positive and negative
aspects and how am I going to benefit from it? If I don't understand
something, it's only natural that I lose interest," Shekhar told
IANS over the phone.
For some like Shagufta Rahman, a student of Guwahati University in
Assam, it's not interest in politics that makes her read the
newspapers or watch the TV and follow all the latest political
developments, but the competitive exams she is going to appear for
next year.
"I am not genuinely interested in what is happening on the political
front. But I do follow what is happening because I am preparing for
competitive exams," she said.
Of course, there are a few like Shadab Azmi, a student of Jamia
Millia Islamia University in the capital who says he follows the
news because he is interested, but a large chunk of them don't seem
to care about the political hullabaloo.
"I am just not interested. Not bothered whether this government
remains or falls," was how Eisha John, who has just joined a BPO in
Gurgaon on the outskirts of Delhi, put it.
Ravi Verma, a commerce student in Symbiosis college in Pune,
similarly said: "I watch TV and am aware of the political twists and
turns. But frankly, I am not bothered".
IANS
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July 18, 2008
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