By: Harshad Oak
I was resisting writing on the austerity talk that has sprung up in India. But the media has now taken the discussion in such a nonsensical direction that I feel forced to air my views. Not that my views matter, but just feel better that way.
Michael Jackson, the ‘king of pop’ was today finally laid to rest, 10 weeks after his death. Michael Jackson was easily the biggest global entertainer ever. Through the 80s and 90s he enjoyed unfathomable levels of popularity across the globe and India was no exception. Thinking of MJ got me thinking of impact of western culture & entertainment on Indians, and it suddenly dawned on me that MJ was perhaps the last English superstar in India.
The 4th IndicThreads.com Conference On Java Technology is scheduled for 11 – 12 Dec 2009 and will be held in Pune, India. The call for papers is now open.
I recently traveled to the US and back to India. On my way to San Francisco I had a connecting flight at Frankfurt, Germany. The following is an experience at Frankfurt that I can’t quite categorize. Is it ignorance / insensitivity / rudeness / racism or maybe even an over reaction on my part?
The final vote count for the Pune Loksabha election is now available. Sitting MP, Suresh Kalmadi of the Congress has managed to retain the Pune seat by a margin of about 25000 votes.
Data as on : May 16 2009 3:01PM
As counting for most seats is complete by this time, most the leads / results below should stand. The margins might change.
2:46 pm Update – Kalmadi leds over Shirole by 24158
2:15 pm Update – Kalmadi leds over Shirole by 21525
1:29 pm Update – Suresh Kalmadi from the Indian National Congress leads by 19410 from BJP’s Anil Shirole as on 1.29 pm on 16th May 09. Counting is still in progress.
The results of Indian General Elections will be available on the Election Commission Of India site http://eciresults.nic.in/ from 8 am on 16th May 2009. Certain pages of the site are already throwing server runtime errors, so it looks unlikely that the site will survive the hammering it will get through counting day tomorrow.
I am expecting the server running the site homepage to crumble under the load, so am listing internal site URLs below. Hopefully some of the links below will work tomorrow.
16 May 09 Update:
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Below is a summary of exit poll predictions for India Election Results 2009. However looking at the dismal record of opinion and exit polls in India, we need to look at these numbers more as entertainment than information. Can’t really blame the pollsters as conducting representative sample polls in a country of the size and diversity of India seems almost like an impossible task.
