{"id":89609,"date":"2019-04-19T15:09:44","date_gmt":"2019-04-19T09:39:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/factly.forumias.com\/?p=3854"},"modified":"2019-04-19T15:09:44","modified_gmt":"2019-04-19T09:39:44","slug":"in-a-first-voting-takes-place-at-institute-of-mental-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/in-a-first-voting-takes-place-at-institute-of-mental-health\/","title":{"rendered":"In a first, voting takes place at Institute of Mental Health"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>For the first time ever in India, voting has\ntaken place at an institution for mentally ill. The voting took place in the Institute\nof Mental Health (IMH) in Ayanavaram, Chennai, Tamil Nadu. Before the voting, a\nmassive exercise was conducted in which patients were screened to ascertain\ntheir decision-making capacity.<\/li><li><strong>Article\n326 of the Indian Constitution<\/strong> which deals with adult suffrage, states that\na person is disqualified for registration in an electoral roll if s\/he is of\nunsound mind and stand so declared by a competent court<\/li><li><strong>Section\n16 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950<\/strong> deals with\n\u2018Disqualification for Registration in electoral roll\u2019. Under Section 16 (b) a\nperson may be disqualified as a voter if the person, \u2018is of unsound mind and\nstands so declared by a competent court\u2019. <\/li><li>The main argument behind disallowing persons\nwith \u201cunsound mind\u201d from voting is the need to maintain the integrity of the\nelectoral process which requires a certain level of informed choice by\nindividuals. It is presumed that persons with \u201cunsound mind\u201d lack the capacity to\nmake informed choice and, hence, should not be allowed to participate in the\nelectoral process.<\/li><li>However, the term \u2018unsound mind\u2019 has not been\ndefined anywhere in any Indian law or in the constitution. Further, it is\nimportant to note that mental illness does not necessarily mean unsound mind. The\nfirst ever voting in a mental illness institute in India is a proactive step\ntowards ending stigma and discrimination against people suffering from mental\nhealth issues. <\/li><\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For the first time ever in India, voting has taken place at an institution for mentally ill. The voting took place in the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) in Ayanavaram, Chennai, Tamil Nadu. Before the voting, a massive exercise was conducted in which patients were screened to ascertain their decision-making capacity. Article 326 of the&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/in-a-first-voting-takes-place-at-institute-of-mental-health\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">In a first, voting takes place at Institute of Mental Health<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1234],"tags":[7028,2161],"class_list":["post-89609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-polity-current-affairs","tag-adult-suffrage","tag-mental-health","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704855085},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89609\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}