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The Supreme Court of India on Friday, April 26, rejected pleas seeking 100% cross-verification of votes cast using EVMs with a Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) and said “blindly distrusting” any aspect of the system can breed unwarranted scepticism.

A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta delivered two concurring verdicts. It dismissed all the pleas in the matter, including those seeking to go back to ballot papers in elections.

An EVM comprises three units – the ballot unit, the control unit and the VVPAT. All three are embedded with microcontrollers with a burnt memory from the manufacturer. Currently, VVPATs are used in five booths per assembly constituency.

EVM VVPAT case: Supreme Court issues two directives

1.    Justice Khanna directed the Election Commission of India to seal and store units used to load symbols for 45 days after the symbols have been loaded to electronic voting machines in strong rooms.

2.    The Supreme Court also allowed engineers of the EVM manufacturers to verify the microcontroller of the machines after the declaration of the results at the request of candidates who stood second and third. The top court said the request for the verification of the microcontroller can be made within seven days of the declaration of the results after payment of fees.

Option for candidates to seek verification of EVM programmes

•    Candidates who secure second and third position in the results can request for the verification of burnt memory semicontroller in 5% of the EVMs per assembly segment in a Parliamentary constituency. The written request to be made within seven days of the declaration of the results.

•    *On receiving such a written request, the EVMs shall be checked and verified by a team of engineers from the manufacturer of the EVMs.

•    Candidates should identify the EVMs to be checked by a serial number of the polling booth.

•    Candidates and their representatives can be present at the time of the verification.

•    After verification, the district electoral officer should notify the authenticity of the burnt memory.

•    Expenses for the verification process, as notified by the ECI, should be borne by the candidate making the request.
What did the Supreme Court say?

•    "If EVM is found tampered during verification, fees paid by the candidates will be refunded," the bench said.

•    "While maintaining a balanced perspective is crucial in evaluating systems or institutions, blindly distrusting any aspect of the system can breed unwarranted scepticism...," Justice Datta said.

Who filed the petitions?

NGO Association for Democratic Reforms, one of the petitioners, had sought to reverse the poll panel's 2017 decision to replace the transparent glass on VVPAT machines with an opaque glass through which a voter can see the slip only when the light is on for seven seconds.

The petitioners have also sought the court's direction to revert to the old system of ballot papers.

Students in Paris blocked access to a campus building at a French university on Friday, as pro-Palestine demonstrations reach Europe.

The students occupied the central campus building of the Paris Institute of Political Studies, known as Sciences Po, and dozens of others blocked its entrance, echoing protest action at American universities.

Students inspired by Gaza solidarity encampments at campuses in the United States blocked access to a campus building at the prestigious French university on Friday.

They blocked the entrance with trash cans, wooden platforms and other items.

The occupation of the Paris university campus came after police broke up a separate protest at the university’s amphitheater outside one of its Paris campuses.

Scores of student protesters gathered at the building’s windows, chanting slogans and holding placards reading “We are all Palestinians,” in defiance of administrators who students say called the police on their peers two days earlier.

Pro-Palestinian student protesters had occupied the amphitheater outside one of the university’s Paris campuses on Wednesday evening.

The US-style student protests, which began over the months-long Israeli regime’s genocidal war against Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip, kicked off in the United States and have now spread to European capitals as well as Australia.

In the German capital Berlin, several people were arrested as police violently cleared a camp of Gaza war protesters at the German parliament.

Pro-Palestinian activists are demanding a permanent ceasefire, an end to the Israeli atrocities, and an arms embargo of the Tel Aviv regime.

The Israeli regime launched the war on Gaza on October 7 last year. The genocidal war has killed more than 34,356 Palestinians, most of them women and children.

Bengaluru: Voting was underway on Friday in the first phase of Lok Sabha polls in 14 constituencies in Karnataka. Polling began at 7 am and will end at 6 pm.

A total of 247 candidates -- 226 men and 21 women -- are in the fray for the first phase covering most of the southern and coastal districts, where more than 2.88 crore voters are eligible to exercise their franchise in 30,602 polling stations.

The Congress and BJP are locking horns on the electoral battleground again in less than a year. This election is witnessing a straight fight between the ruling Congress and the BJP-JD(S) combine unlike the Assembly elections in May last year which witnessed a triangular contest among the three parties.

The state has a total of 28 Lok Sabha constituencies. The second phase of polling in the remaining 14 seats is on May 7.

In the first phase, while the Congress is contesting in all 14 seats, BJP has fielded nominees in 11 and its alliance partner JD(S), which joined the National Democratic Alliance in (NDA) in September last year, in three -- Hassan, Mandya and Kolar.

Besides the three, the segments where elections are being held on Friday are: Udupi-Chikmagalur, Dakshina Kannada, Chitradurga, Tumkur, Mysore, Chamarajanagar, Bangalore Rural, Bangalore North, Bangalore Central, Bangalore South and Chikkballapur.

According to Election Commission, 1.4 lakh polling officials are on duty for the first phase. Besides them, 5,000 micro-observers, 50,000 civil police personnel, and 65 companies of Central Paramilitary Force and State Armed Police force of other States have been deployed for security. All the 2,829 polling stations of Bangalore Rural parliamentary constituency are being webcast.

"This is as per the request of our returning officers and observers; so we have given more than double the Central paramilitary force for Bangalore Rural constituency. Seven companies of Central paramilitary forces have been inducted at the constituency since April 22," Karnataka Chief Electoral Officer Manoj Kumar Meena has said.

In fact, out of the total 30,602 polling stations in the first phase, 19,701 are webcast, and 1,370 covered via CCTVs, he had added. Chikkaballapur has a maximum number of 29 candidates, followed by 24 in Bangalore Central, and Dakshina Kannada has the least number at nine.

JD(S) leader H D Kumaraswamy from Mandya, his brother-in-law and noted cardiologist C N Manjunath from Bangalore Rural on a BJP ticket against Deputy CM D K Shivakumar's brother and MP D K Suresh of Congress, and erstwhile Mysuru royal family scion Yaduveer Krishnadatta Chamaraja Wadiyar from Mysore, from the BJP, are among the prominent candidates in the fray in the first phase.

Also in the contest are BJP MP Tejasvi Surya from Bangalore South pitted against Minister Ramalinga Reddy's daughter Sowmya Reddy of Congress, and Union Minister Shobha Karandlaje on BJP ticket from Bangalore North against former Indian Institute of Management Bangalore professor M V Rajeev Gowda of Congress.