This is an important topic for Mains General Studies Paper 2 under the topic :
Salient features of the Representation of People’s Act.
WHAT JUST HAPPENED?
Our current Chief Commissioner O.P.Rawat recently said “How Google can help election commission” Google Representatives met a committee which is underelection commision of India.
Under the act of Section 126 (election silence) Section 126 (election silence) is part of Representation of the People Act, 1951.
BASICS :
The Election Commission (EC) has set up a 14-member committee to suggest changes in Section 126 of the Representation of the people(RP) Act, which prohibits poll campaign in the last 48 hours leading to voting, in the wake of media expansion.
The committee chaired by Deputy Election Commissioner Umesh Sinha.
Name of committee: Umesh Sinha Committee.
The INTERNET has a very big role to play in our daily life and Election Commission (EC) of India has said that any kind of new campaign or advertisement should not take place before 48 hours. It is quite possible to stop the campaign offline but doing this online is a difficult task .
Umesh Sinha Committee took help from Google .
Google said it will help election commission.
Notes
The candidate has to declare to the Election Commision about how much money he/she is going to spend on the campaign.(Online /Offline both) Candidate should give detail about the there advertisements to EC’s Media Certification and Monitoring Committee.EC’s Media Certification and Monitoring Committee will certify the political advertisements
whether it should run or not .
It is said that advertisements certified or not certified both should not run before 48 hours of the election.
Apart From the Google, Election Commission committee “Umesh Sharma” talked to Facebook and Twitter. They are supporting the Election Commission and will remove all kinds of political
advertisements.
Online Advertising Market Share (Worldwide data)
Google 44.1%
Facebook 3.1%
Yahoo/Microsoft 12.3%
Aol. 1.5%
Others 39%
India’s Online Advertising Market Share data is not yet released but it is said that Google has a 60% share in Indian Advertisement. Google will bring great transparency to
political Advertisements.
Google assurance was very much required as it covers a very large part of Online Advertising Market Share in India
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