Polling in India.

Jot down the first thing that comes to your mind.

India goes to poll on the 19th of April 2024.

Polling in India is a huge exercise. This time the poll will be conducted in 7 phases spanning over six weeks. It will conclude on 1st of June.

There are 2600 parties vying for 544 seats in Parliament. The present incumbent NDA, with the BJP as the main ruling party, is aiming to clinch a win for the third time in a row.

And the opposition INDI Alliance have formed a greater and stronger coalition, promising to spring a surprise.

Voting machines have already reached the length and the breadth of the nation. India boasts the world’s highest polling booth at 4650 metres, up in the Himalayas.

Wish India and the Indian voters good luck.

Memes on SM walls win polls in India.

It’s election time, as you all know.

When you walk in the street and happen to look at a poster (no walls are wasted, all pasted!) on the wall which has an image of the actor, director and producer Sandhana Bharathi, but the message is about Indian HM Amit Shah, you have just seen a good meme. That makes everyone laugh.

A meme is a humorous and satirical way of conveying a message or an idea into an easily translatable format.

Social media nowadays are awash with memes. Images, videos and GIFs have all got memes as content.

Do you know how old a meme is?

The meme is as old as 1953, when the New York Times used the word in a Crossword Puzzle. The clue was; “Same:French.” (The term has a French origin).

It appeared again on the crossword in 2021, with the clue now hinting; “something that gets passed around a lot”.

People share memes on social media and good memes can go viral in a second.

The British evolutionary biologist and atheist Richard Dawkins was the first to use the term in his 1976 book, “The Selfish Gene.”

He said in his book that he needed a name for the new replicator, a noun that conveys the idea of a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation.

He was actually talking about genes replicating through generations.

He wanted a name that sounded like “gene.” And that was how the word ‘meme’ was born.

People live in a fast-paced social media world. They have little time for reading and images in the form of memes help positively influence people’s minds.

Memes form part of today’s marketing content too. Products sell faster through memes.

The popular meme creator who has a three million following on Instagram, Saint Hoax says memes are basically editorial cartoons for the internet age.

“Messages in a meme format catch your eye, and most of them can be read and understood within seconds,” says Samir Mezrahi, the deputy director of social media at BuzzFeed.

But there’s a flip side to a meme.

Some of them might just negatively impact your business and make your potential customers think twice before buying your services.

So be cautious when creating a meme and try rolling it out for circulation on social media.

A challenge for me and my nation alike!

What is the biggest challenge you will face in the next six months?

Allow me to rephrase the question: What is the biggest challenge I and my nation will face in the next six months?

Our nation, India, is gearing up for the general election between April and May 2024 to elect new members for 543 Lok Sabha seats in Parliament.

I shall be looking forward to a feverish campaign nationwide by political parties of all hues and colors.

This election is going to throw some huge surprises though, as the country is now divided between people who continue to call India a secular democratic country and those who seek to create a new nation which holds religion and faith supreme.

Who will win this time will create a new path for India. To achieve the objective, we as citizens face a huge challenge: which way should I take India forward?

The current government at the center, headed by PM Mr. Modi has been ruling the nation since 2014 and is rooting for a third term in a row. A hat-trick performance is what his party Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is aiming at.

But the leaders of the opposition have come together and formed an alliance in the name of the I.N.D.I.A (INDI Alliance). They are more determined this time to stop the juggernaut of the ruling NDA.

While the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), led by the BJP is strong in the north of the country, the opposition alliance (INDIA), on the other hand, is putting up a better show in the South.

The next six months, therefore, is indeed a challenge for the political leaders and the citizens, alike. Each of us has a vote that’s going to seal the fate of a nation of 1.43 billion people.

Do join us and help in our prayers for a more vibrant and stronger India.

Isn’t that a challenge?