India, Jan. 25 -- On January 25, 1950, just two days before India formally became a republic, a modest yet momentous institution came into being: the Election Commission of India (ECI). Conceived in the aftermath of colonial rule and amid the uncertainties of a newly independent nation, the Commission was entrusted with a responsibility few countries had ever attempted on such a scale - conducting free and fair elections in a land of vast geography, staggering diversity, deep poverty, and widespread illiteracy. Seventy-seven years later, the very survival, let alone the success, of Indian democracy stands as a quiet rebuke to the many sceptics who once dismissed this experiment as doomed from the start. At its inception, the Election Comm...