COIMBATORE: Chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar on Saturday said the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls has been carried out successfully in India while similar exercises in countries like the United States have not been implemented. He said SIR aimed only at removing five categories of ineligible names from electoral rolls — absent, shifted, deceased, duplicate and foreign voters — while ensuring every eligible citizen above 18 years is enrolled. Gyanesh Kumar was speaking at the 30th convocation at Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham in Coimbatore. Kumar and NITI Aayog member R Balasubramaniam were chief guests.Kumar highlighted the scale and transparency of India’s electoral process, describing it as the world’s largest democratic exercise with 97 crore electors. He said conducting the Lok Sabha elections requires the deployment of nearly 1.8 crore personnel, including govt staff and polling officials, making it the largest organisational exercise globally. He said elections were conducted strictly in accordance with the Constitution. Addressing the graduates Balasubramaniam said a university degree alone no longer guarantees professional success in a rapidly changing world, stressing that employers increasingly value problem-solving ability, creativity, collaboration and an entrepreneurial mindset over academic qualifications. During the ceremony, 120 doctoral scholars got their PhD degrees. In addition, 2,317 students from various disciplines, including engineering, arts and science and agriculture, were awarded their degrees.
