In his keynote address, Sayan Chatterjee, former deputy Election Commissioner and secretary to the government explained, that the Election Commission in India had a stirring effect on the government to change the relations between the organs of the state trough its own transformation. Trough that steps, the Election Commission brought some purity in the election process. The introduction of the Electronic Voting Machines is improving the speed of the declaration of election results. During that process, the political parties owning and running television channels gave a biased coverage of the elections. Prof Dr Peter Schiwy, former head of German Radio, in his address said that the German Electoral system could be understood by the people’s interest in Parliament as a mirror that reflected manifold political disturbances. Kalyani Shankar, Senior Journalist and author described the corruption in India as the biggest challenge to close the chinks in the electoral system. Admittedly, all the political parties agree that politicians with a criminal record should be excluded from participating in the elections but in practice, they resist any attempts to enforce this. The Indians lost their trust in the government, because muscle power and money suppress the democratic system. Ravindra Kumar, editor of The Statesman, talked about „paid news“. This phenomenon would last as long as the costs for a newspaper are below the printing costs.

Ajoy Bose, Journalist, explained that Indian media is controlled by the government and politicians and this poses a threat to the freedom of the media.