India, June 25 -- Plugging loopholes in the electoral roll

The Election Commission of India (ECI)'s decision to undertake a special intensive revision (SIR) of the electoral roll across India, beginning with Bihar, comes against the backdrop of mounting controversy over the role of the poll watchdog in high-profile elections. ECI said on Tuesday that it had decided to weed out ineligible names from the electoral roll, citing rapid urbanisation, frequent migration, young citizens becoming eligible to vote, non-reporting of deaths, and the inclusion of the names of foreign illegal immigrants as some of the motivations for the house-to-house verification exercise. People whose names didn't figure in the rolls in 2003, the last time the SIR ...