128. The Long Vote

Queueing for a chance to vote

1.21 billion people, the second largest country by population on earth. That is India, the famed sub-continent tacked onto Asia. Thanks to China’s political position India is the largest democracy in the world. This naturally means that every few years there is a vote. It is described as the largest en masse democratic movement in the world. The Indians like a vote, and they turn out in force.

Voting is seen as a great thing in India and if you can, you will. This means there are hundreds of millions of voters at every election. This takes time. In fact it takes 7 whole months  for everyone to submit their vote. Day in day out with polling stations at every hall and train station and even post offices. People queue around the block to vote each day but it never goes any faster. However there is one more feat of time management that the Indian vote manages to pull.

After 7 solid months of voting, thanks to a fantastic e-voting infrastructure every single vote is counted in a single day. Now isn’t that something?

 

31. The Burning Monk

World Press Photo of the Year - 1963

Thich Quang Duc – The Burning Monk of Vietnam

11^th June 1963, Vietnam : In Vietnam there is a small Buddhist uprising going on, protests against the Diem regime are now commonplace and have been so for one month. A small group of American journalists have gathered outside of the Cambodian Embassy in Saigon, the busy road intersections traffic produced a low roar which permeated the air, the Journalists had been told that the Buddhists would do something, but they didn’t know what. Suddenly they notice a fuss, a small car approaches, it is a pale blue Austin Westminster, it is being followed by 2 phalanxes of Buddhists, 350 Monks and Nuns in total. In the wind their banners wave, they are in English and Thai, denouncing the Diem government and its persecution of Buddhists and other religious groups. The car and procession stops. The event begins.

Thich Quang Duc and two other monks emerge from the car, the two other monks go the boot of the car and pull out a 5-gallon gasoline can and a cushion. The monk puts the cushion down in the centre of the road and the Buddhists form a circle around the site. Thich Quang Duc sits down in the Lotus position, and in this meditative position, his colleague emptied the whole 5 gallons of gasoline over him.