The best way to know the self is feeling oneself at the moments of reckoning. The feeling of being alone, just with your senses, may lead you to think more consciously. More and more of such moments may sensitize ‘you towards you’, towards others. We become regular with introspection and retrospection. We get ‘the’ gradual connect to the higher self we may name Spirituality or God or just a Humane Conscious. We tend to get a rhythm again in life. We need to learn the art of being lonely in crowd while being part of the crowd. A multitude of loneliness in mosaic of relations! One needs to feel it severally, with conscience, before making it a way of life. One needs to live several such lonely moments. One needs to live severallyalone.

Thursday 4 May 2017

EMMANUEL MACRON WINS TELEVISED DEBATE BEFORE FINAL ROUND OF FRENCH PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION ON MAY 7


Just three days before the second and final round of the French presidential polls, centrist Emmanuel Macron of the En Marche! (EM) party have emerged as the clear winner of the televised debate between him and far-right Marine Le Pen of the Front National (FN) party.

A survey on the televised debate by Elabe, a research and consultancy firm, for the largest French broadcaster BFM TV, also a CNN affiliate, found that Macron who was already running ahead of Le Pen with higher ratings, further consolidated his position after the debate.

In the debate, watched by over 16.5 million people, that lasted for two-and-a-half hour and has been described as the ugliest one in the French presidential election history, Macron emerged as the clear winner with 63 per cent of viewers finding him more convincing than Le Pen.

According to a The Guardian report, the French media termed it a "dirty debate" with its criticism targeted at Marine Le Pen for her 'permanent aggression' and unconvincing words. The consensus read that Le Pen tried to avoid a serious debate with her "multiple attacks and provocations" and therefore, made the debate "unworthy of a presidential election campaign”.

Invectives, smirks, insinuations and personal insults had a free run. Macron described Le Pen as corrupt, ill-informed, hate-filled liar and said that her ultra-nationalism and her contempt for globalization and Islamism will be detrimental for the French society. Le Pen is a known European Union hater and has vowed to crackdown on Islamism. Le Pen, in turn, found him "an arrogant, spoilt, cold-eyed, “smirking banker” who was colluding with Islamists, complacent on terrorism and intent on “butchering France” in favour of “big economic interests”, the report said.

The final round of the French presidential polls are just two days away and Macron looks in a comfortable position to sail through. Majority of polls before the Sunday's final round are giving Macron a 40-60 lead. An Elabe analysis says Macron is expected to get 65 per cent of the final round votes.

The first round of the French presidential polls were held on April 23 and the top two contenders from the 11 in the fray moved to the second and final round run-off. Emmanuel Macron was on top with 23.8 per cent votes in the first round and Le Pen was a close second with 21.5 per cent votes. The polls go to the second round when no candidate is able to secure 50 per cent of the votes in the first round, something that has never happened. Since April 23, Macron has firmed up his position and he is also expected to corner left-leaning, centrist-right and other anti-Le Pen votes in the final round.

Emmanuel Macron is just 39 and his political career is just five years old. He was the Minister of the Economy, Industry and Digital Affairs before he resigned in August 2016 to form the EM party. So his party has no political representation but he has an opportunity as the French legislative elections are due in June 2017 to elect the next French National Assembly.

Marine Le Pen, 48, is a lawyer and career politician and has inherited her party FN from her father Jean-Marie Le Pen, the highly controversial and polarizing figure of French politics who is known for his extreme far-right ideology. Though she has tried to distance herself from her father's extreme views, in order to widen her base, going by the ratings so far, and her radical views on issues like globalization, Islamism and terrorism and immigrations, it seems see has failed to make a genuine course correction.

©SantoshChaubey