Bhubaneswar, April 19 -- In 1977, then Chief Election Commissioner Sham Lal Shakdher asked the Electronics Corporation of India to develop a prototype of voting machine or as he termed it 'balloting unit'. It was because of highly priced ballot papers that were not easy to handle and were prone to fraudulent practices. With the joint efforts of ECIL and Bharat Electronics, the Voting Machine was first used in Paravur Assembly in Kerala. However in 1984, Supreme Court stopped the use of EVM as it was against the then-law. It took four years to amend the law and allow EVMs. In 1989, IIT professors designed the look of the voting machine. Election Commission considered Voter Variable Paper Audit Trail for transparency in 2010. After multiple...