Update on Post 21

Hello everyone.

I have stopped keeping a count of the number of days I miss writing a post. But I want to let you know, the background process of creating something is always... always running. I have been working on an infographic. It is the first one for me so I am doing a bit of research on the subject and the infographic both.

India is having its 16th general election since last month and my general knowledge isn't my asset (actually, I can call it my weakness). So I decided to explore the Indian Government and Indian polity. Yes, polity and not politics! But you might have guessed it, polity is very closely related to politics.

Polity (n): An organized society, such as a nation, having a specific form of government.

Politics (n): the activities associated with the governance of a country or other area, especially the debate or conflict among individuals or parties having or hoping to achieve power.

So Indian polity refers to India as a society having a specific form of government whereas Indian politics, only by the definition, is related to what activities are performed to run the government.

Using a visual form of representation, I intend to explain:
How is the government of India organised?
Which positions have what power?
Whom/what do we actually vote for?

For instance, when a vote is casted during a general election, it is effectively casted for a political party. Usually a leader is selected to becomes the face of that party during an election. But the leader can change after the election results are announced. So you have the power only to choose a party but not the party leader. Since the leader of the winning party assumes the position of the Prime Minister, we have very little control to choose the Prime Minister. What we can choose is the party.

My pursuit is to stick to facts without using names of people or parties to explain the basic structure of Indian polity and government to folks like me without making them fall asleep. I hold it against my civics textbook to this day for making me lose interest in such an important topic!

To explain intricacies I may have to use an animated infographic which seems like a pretty big commitment at this point and will take me days to create given the complex nature of the subject. So, I am going to cover just the overview this time around (which also is taking a lot of time :)).

There were multiple reasons for me to write this post today:
1) This is a challenging work but I do not want to give it up. I hate the subject and I have to put in a lot of effort to study it without falling asleep. (I have started drinking my black coffees again). Writing it down on this blog helps me stay committed.
2) By elaborating my purpose of the infographic, I am making sure I do not lose sight of the purpose of my project or start cutting corners.
3) It has been so long that I wrote something so decided to say hello and tell you what I have been upto!

This would be my last creation for this mission. I will also be writing a report on what impact this has had on me before I move onto my next mission.

Please stay tuned.... There has been a lot of "backstage" activity happening. I have started warming up for my next mission and I can't wait to share. Just waiting for the right time to reveal it...