E-voting in the Philippines

Comment

Comment by Sudhamshu Dahal on July 15, 2012 at 9:44am

I also found this document as relevant to my observation, here http://www.niu.edu/cseas/outreach/pdfs/origins_religion.pdf. 

Comment by Sudhamshu Dahal on July 15, 2012 at 9:40am

Thanks for sharing e-Governance information on the Philippines. My comments are more of an observation than a comment to your post (blog).

 

In my view, it would be a very strong point to name Asian countries in terms of the religions. There could be a certain religious majority but a country may not identity itself as such. For example in both India and Nepal the Hindus are majority population but the nations identify themselves as secular states.

 

The identity politics has been very strong in the social and political movements in South Asia. The recent example is Nepal. Until the year 2008, Nepal was the world's only Hindu Monarchy and some revered it as a matter of national pride. But as we moved in to a more democratic state, following the Peoples' Movement in 2006, we are now a secular Republic.

 

As internet and internet-propelled tools are more egalitarian than traditional information and communication tools, it might have to deal more with the intricacies of identity politics. Even during our class chats and in successive comments in the form of HT entries (IGCBP12 AdvEparticipation), we have been discussing the issues of identities at length, especially in the context of social media identities and its effects.

 

The power of internet and social media is an acknowledged fact now. ‘With great power, comes greater responsibility’ and new media (technology) has to be more sensitive on these issues, where one wrong indication could lead to a bush-fire of (mis)information and equal if not more, damage to the extant social fabric. I would like to flag this point, because religious identities have been one fundamental reason for the divisive politics and regional wars in the sub-continent of South Asia