Bangalore: Former Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) T N Seshan today (Mar 17, 2004) said voters should get angry in the interest of a better democracy in the country.

"How do you get your electorate to get angry? ...so that we can run a better democracy," Seshan said at a debate on "Are we Innovative Enough," at the CII (Confederation of Indian Industry) conference on "Competitiveness through Innovation".

Asserting that he was not partisan to argue on behalf of any political party, he said the world knew that India as a country was innovative, but asked whether is it enough.

"If you want Governments to alter the country, you have to improve democracy. If you want a mature democracy, there must be discontent," he said.

Seshan told reporters that India's elections are one of the most organised and unparalleled in its magnitude in the entire world, where 600 million people vote and six million people man the elections.

Despite a majority of Indians being illiterate, he said, they are casting their vote with ease on an electronic voting machine.

Refusing to get involved over the issue of former CEC M S Gill being nominated by the Congress to the Rajya Sabha, Seshan said, "if it is a handout (favour) it is not a desirable thing, if it is not there is nothing wrong."

The former CEC, who lost to Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani in the Gandhinagar constituency in the last general elections said, he would not contest this time. In the debate, Seshan criticised the education system prevalent in the country as "preparing for clerks" in the East India company and said, "it did not encourage students to ask questions and be creative, instead was snuffing out creativity among them."

Stating that he was involved in educational activities across the country, he said, "The snuffing of creativity is not just at school level, in colleges, engineering institutions and at PhD levels, where the instructors read out notes which are to be vomited at the exams."

Seshan said the industry had a right to improve the quality of education in the country, but "they are not doing enough".

Appreciating the software success saga, Seshan said the lack of growth in the hardware sector was a disturbing scene.

Opening the debate, Erehwon Innovation Consulting, Director Bhupendra Sharma in his presentation cited examples of Indian firms which were innovative and achieved success through breakthrough methods.

Examples included Shanta Biotech, Bank of America, the E-choupal initiative of ITC, Gandh Sugandh and Divya Bhaskar.

The others who spoke in the debate included Metro Cash and Carry Managing Director Harsh Bahadur, Encore Software Chairman and CEO Vinay Deshpande, Raman Boards Managing Director Aroon Raman, 'Economic Times' Senior Editor Narendar Pani and Yuken India Managing Director C P Rangachar.