What can one vote do?

According to this report, one vote can cause the election officials a lot of hassle. Interesting article, nevertheless. I am pasting the original link here as well.

Lone voter keeps democracy afloat in Kerala booth

KOZHIKODE: After keeping polling officials on their toes for hours, a lone voter in a booth at Perambra Assembly constituency in Kerala exercised his precious franchise on Saturday afternoon.

Cherangattu Dasan, who attained the status of a VIP for keeping the 'babus', six in number, including a policeman and a driver, engaged since yesterday and evoking much interest throughout, turned up for voting at the Office of the Assistant Engineer Kakkayam Civil Maintenance Station, atop a hillock, at 1356 pm.

Although an exact figure was not available, a polling official said the Government had to shell out thousands of rupees in the way of TA/DA and transportation expenses for the employees for extricating a vote.

With this booth No 156 had the distinction of 100 per cent polling in the state.
The hapless officials, who reached at the booth on Friday, descended only in the evening even after the voting because as per the Election Commission norms booths could only be closed after 5.00 pm.

Dasan was the lone voter at the booth at Kakkayam Dam site in the
2004 general elections as well.

In a bid to close down the lone booth, the Election Commission had recently sent feelers to Dasan to exercise his franchise at another booth, 13 kilometres away. But the response was lukewarm as he said ''nothing will happen if I stay away from voting,'' according to sources.

The Commission cannot dictate terms either as according to stipulation the voting centre should be within 1.5 km radius of the place of residence of a voter.

Hailing from Pambady in Kottayam district, Dasan came to Kakkayam as an employee of Charangattu estate in 1968 and now stays in the dense forest along with his five cows.

Earlier, there were 350 voters in the booth. But others left after the estate was closed down.

According to reports Dasan's decision was influenced by the estate owner, who was engaged in a legal battle to prevent a take-over bid by the Government.

Test of man..

A friend once told me, that the real test of a person is not when he is in difficult times, but rather when he is in emely good times. Give the man, some power and space and then he will show what his true colours are. He will show then, whom he considers friends and whom he looks down and whom he respects. In diffficulty, this is not so.. he "needs" friends, he "has" to respect his compatriots, but when in power - all this changes.

 

The reason, why he mentioned this to me, was ofcourse, one guy whom we were quite friendly with in the office, had suddenly had got a little wind-fall. His boss had given some very important work and additional responsibilites, not for any other reason, but because there was nobody else to do it, because Mr. boss was going outside the country for some other work.

 

Well, after this happened, the guy just changed, he suddenly stopped hanging out with us, and whats more, even started ordering us around - luckily, my work was not related to his in any way, so I didnt have to hear it from him. But my friend, bore the brunt of it. He even showed us e-mails, where this was very evident.

 

Why did I remember this today - I am not sure, I was wondering if I had also fallen into the same trap. How would I know? I also felt the same thing, from another colleague of mine, whose attitude has changed slightly, and so has his langauage over the last couple of days. Are these the beginnings of change? I dont know, and I hope not. But as they say, only time will tell.

I am watching it again...

for the n-th time, I am watching "You've got Mail" - they are airing it on television, and I cant keep myself from watching it again. I like the movie - yeah.. i know, its a mushy movie, but its what it is and I like it. I enjoy it everytime.

I am a big fan of Tom Hanks, I love most of his movies. Nearly everyone of them - Saving Private Ryan, Forrest Gump, Sleepless in Seatle, The Terminal...etc..etc.

My favourites - lets see ...hmmm...I think it is "Forrest Gump" and "The Terminal". Ofcourse, this is among the list of movies starring Tom Hanks, I can remember off-hand.

Caught in the act...

Funny pic I got in one of those forward mails. No wonder I still put up with all the forwards, that I keep getting, every once in a a while, you get something really nice ! :D

Of pain in numbness.

Another day.. another story. Yeah..right!!! I wish!!!

I woke up today morning with a really bad pain in my back. Infact, it was the other way around. The pain was what awoke me, so I got up earlier than usual. I just could not understand why it was paining so much. Everything was fine, when I went to bed. Unless, I sleep walk and got bashed up by somebody on the back or fell down the stairs, I cant think of any other logical reason. Anyway, it was bad - i was even having trouble drawing in deep breaths.

I decided to skip bath - i usually look for some excuse for that, but today i had a genuine reason (being in pain, you can cut me some slack, eh?). I walked  down to the office - but the pain persisted, though decreased in terms of intensity.

More mundane work and more frustration and I am mentally buzzed - I feel numb in my head, and i feel some sort of panic rising within me. I dont know why, but some days at the office, i get that feeling.

And that leads us to the present, where I am utterly disoriented and i decide to write this, so that i can take my mind off the 'mind-numbing' work that i am doing...(i was told that the work was challenging, but i didnt know it was challenging this way!!).

I am reminded of two songs (two of my favourites) - one is Comfortably Numb by Pink Floyd, and the other is "I want to break free" (by Queens)...

While i struggle to get the rest of the day over with - may these two songs ring in my head and keep me compnay.

V for Vendetta...........V for vu - Deja vu

 

Saw V for Vendetta last night. I should say i liked it and it thouroughtly entertained me. Good visuals, good style, good colours (specially the backgrounds), and a good story. The story constantly reminded me of two book that I had read some time back - one was 1984 (by George Orwell) and the other was Brave New World (Aldous Huxley). Its a genre of fiction/philosophy that appeals to me. Censorship, its role in society, different forms of society - like democracy, communism, totalitarian, etc.etc...topics like this intrigue me. Maybe thats the reason why I liked the movie so much.

 

I could have become a millionaire.....

Got this mail once again..this time, its after some time. I havent got this one in a couple of months, it used to very regular before that. Or maybe, I have been receiving these mails, but the spam filter picked them up. This time, it missed.

This one is also slightly improved, it even includes an external link to a bbc report on a concorde crash that happened a couple of years ago. Wow...now did that make it more believable. :D

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

FROM MR. HAMED MBADA
THE MANAGER FOREIGN REMITTANCE DEPARTMENT,
AFRICA DEVELOPMENT BANK(ADB)
BURKINA FASO.

Dear Partner,

(TOP SECRET)

I am Mr Hamed Mbada , the manager in charge of auditing and accounting section of Africa Development Bank.AFRICA DEVELOPMENT BANK(ADB) Ouagadougou Burkina-faso West Africa ,with due respect and regard. I have decided to contact you on a business transaction that will be very beneficial to both of us at the end of the transaction .

During our investigation and auditing in this bank, my department came across a very huge sum of money belonging to a deceased person Mr.Andreas Schranner who who died with his wife and their only daughter on July 2000 in a plane crash and the fund has been dormant in his account with this Bank without any claim of the fund in our custody either from his family or relation before our discovery to this development.

The said amount was U.S $10.150M ((Ten million one hundred and fiftythousand US dolloars)). As it may interest you to know, I got your impressive information through internation search in Burkina-faso here in Ouagadougou Burkina-faso.
Meanwhile all the whole arrangement to put claim over this fund as the
bonafide next of kin to the deceased, get the required approval and transfer this money to a foreign account has been put in place and directives and needed information will be relayed to you as soon as you indicate your interest and willingness to assist me and also benefit your self to this great business opportunity.

In fact I could have done this deal alone but because of my position in this country as a civil servant(A Banker),we are not allowed to operate a foreign account and would eventually raise an eye brow on my side during the time of transfer because I work in this bank. This is the actual reason why it will require a second party or fellow who will forward claims as the next of kin with affidavit of trust of oath to the Bank and also present a foreign account where he will need the money to be re-transferred into on his request as it may be after due verification and clarification by the correspondent branch of the bank where the whole money will be remitted from to your own designation bank account.

I will not fail to inform you that this transaction is 100% risk free. On smooth conclusion of this transaction, you will be entitled to 40% of the total sum as gratification, while 60% will be for me. Please, you have been adviced to keep "top secret" as I am still in service and intend to retire from service after we conclude this deal with you.

I will be monitoraing the whole situation here in this bank until you confirm the money in your account and ask me to come down to your country for subsequent sharing of the fund according to percentages previously indicated and further investment, either in your country or any country you advice us to invest in. All other necessary information will be sent to you when I hear from you. Trusting to hear from you.

You can visit the sit http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/859479.stm


Yours faithfully,
MR HAMED MBADA

This woke me up today morning..

I was jolted out of my sleep today morning by this sudden sound (cant really remember what it sounded like..) followed by a continous blare of a loud car horn, which didnt stop for atleast 10 minutes.

There was some accident that had happened..and i got this image of what was left..as you can see, it looked bad. Luckily, nobody seemed hurt - because there was no presence of any ambulance, even after the cops had arrived and cleared the scene.



The image is not clear too clear though - its taken at a very high zoom (abt 10x) and at 400ISO and poor light. I am still very much an amateur at photography..so if anyone has any tips on taking better photos in such situations - pls feel free.

How much do I weigh..?

I just found out the answer to this question and let me tell you - the results were not even remotely good. Infact, on the contrary, it scared the helll out of me. I always thought I was putting on weight, whenever I saw my self-image in a mirror...that I knew - I am not a dreamer - what hit me ws the alarming rate at which I am gaining weight.

Anyway, here are the results with my head hung in shame : 76kgs :(

And that is after I was 71kgs about 6 months back. 5 kgs in around 6 months - man, i am gaining 1 kg nearly every month. Now if htats not scary wht is not????

Anyway, I need to do something about this - no more french fries, even as side-dishes, and also need to start going to the gym as soon as i an muster the strength and the will to do that.

so, ladies and getlemen, while i take the weight-loss train and hopefulyl cling/keep holding on it - wish me luck and well !!

Here goes then...

If I am not too ashamed to declare the results of my efforts, I will keep updating on this topic..

My face...

I have just choosen this image as my face on blog-world..atleast for the time-being....

Have always been a big fan of Hobbes !!

Cheers !! ;-oD

Syriana

Finally got to watch the movie "Syriana" - I am glad that they finally released the movie in this part of the world. I had my doubts over the release of the movie here, because of the controversial nature of the movie.

The movie is insightful and makes you sit up and take notice - notice not only the movie - but also the what it is trying to potray or convey. The Oil industry, in my opinion, in this movie is just an example, probably the most pertinent one given the current situation in the world (read - the Iraq occupation). And the location of the movie in the Middle East is also just beause of the story being based on Oil. But, I think the story would have also been relevant to other industries and major lobbies - like the arms industry or maybe something similar to that.

The essential point is that major econmoies and government policies are not mostly independent of the interests of the major lobbysts and the major players in the concerned markets. Be it oil or arms or aircrafts, or steel or any other goods, natural resources. Goverments can sideline its idealist attitudes (if it any time had any) and adopt these stances to acheive the ends of the players behind the scenes.

Puppet goverments or pro-interests goverments are alawys in order to facilitate these ends. These have been very evidently illustrated by the actions of the previous USSR in Afghanista or its neighbouring states like Hungary (the old iron-curtain countries). Similarly, the US has tried its infulences in some of the Latin American countries (like the Chile, Venezuala, Cuba etc.). Ofcourse, things in many of these places have not really gone in the way the US or the USSR would have wanted it. Bloody revolutions, or in some cases, by democratic methods, these countries have cahnged themselves.

Anyway, without digressing too much from the point of the movie - the movie, I believe acheives its goal . Atleast now ppl will notice how international politics work. So, when a country says we are ''liberating - it might not be true. THere is probably a bigger end and motivation to their efforts.

Unfortunately, as sad as all this sounds - international politics have alawys functioned like this. We just live in a world where every body is human - its just pure human nature.

The internet connection !

Touchwood - I think i have finally got a stable internet connection at home. Whats more its a wireless network I am accessing, so I can access it from anywhere in my place. Thats ind of cute, isisnt it ?

 

Who would have thought a couple of years before that wireless internet connections would be so common. Now, you can practically, just walk about with your computer and connect to the network from any plcae.... like a coffee shop or a shopping mall or a restaurant or just at home. Its wonderful the way the technology has made such significant advances in this sector. First there was the land-line phone, then came the mobile phone...which was revolutionary enough..and then it was just a matter of time before internet was available via a wireless connection!! Bravo !!

 

With the technology jumping ahead by leaps and bounds, its only natural that some people will feel that its too much and too fast for them. Keeping abreast with the latest technolgy is not easy..and i am not surprised if the older generation of people feel technology (even the younger guys feel it.. sometimes even I feeel it). I am just afraid, by the time I reach a venerable age, things will be so different and so advanced, that we might say "in the old days of the mp3 songs" or like "in the old days of the i-pod" - think about it....it might scare you sometimes...your kids will more smarter than you.. at 1/4th your age..your 6 year old grandson might be more tech-savvy than you are.  :oD

 

The future is ours to wait and watch for the coming generations to define....

Music for "Inside Man"

I just got back from the cinema after a show of the "Inside Man". I am not sure if I liked the movie - which is probably a better way of saying that I wasnt really very impressed by the movie. Hmmm...basically I felt quite indifferent after the movie. Now, thats not something that I like abt movies - I love movies which give you something to take out of the cinema when you leave.

 

Anyway, I also noticed that the starting and closing themes in the movie is the song "Chaiya Chaiya" from the movie "Dil Se" - that music was by A.R. Rehman. Now, I wonder if they took permission from Rehman when they decided to take it as the starting and closing themes for the Inside Man. I did not see any acknowledgements either. But, its possible that I might have missed that - I didnt wait for the entire scroll to roll.

 

But, I was dissappointed by the movie - I liked the trailers - thats the reason why I went for it in the first place...Yeah.. yeah.. thats what trailers are supposed to do. Screw it.. i think this trailer was pretty good.. it managed to get me to spend some money to watch in the cinema. Damn.. i havent fell for that in a long time now...

 

Damn!!!

Congrats to the Coach !!

Congrats Greg !!!

 

I think the coach needs a good pat on the back for pushing the team and getting them to perform well. Its a team effort after-all and the coach as much as a part of it, as anybody else. And his role is such that he needs special mention.

 

Inspite of all his critics and the various controversies going around - i still think he is a good coach and is working on the team and is also making them work. Particularly, I think since he came in as coach, he and Dravid have a good chance to a lot of youngsters leading to very good discoveries and lots of potential good players. A good team also needs a very strong bench and constantly up-coming players.

 

 

Congrats and All the best once again !!

 

cheers!

India Wins the Series !!

Yoohoo !!!

 

India just managed to wrap up the series entirely. In 7 matches, India are leading 4 matches to nil..thats a pretty good picture, dont you think?   :-)

 

Many fans like me, will be thrilled at the turn of events and how this series has been going along. Its good for India, because India is managing to win inspite of Sachin's absence and also the lack of form from Sehwag. Till sometime back, without these two men, it would have been hardly possible for India to manage a win. Well, critics say that its also because England is a weak team in this series, because a lot of their older and experienced players are not in the one-day series. But, yet, I think its a good thing for India because new youngstars are getting a good chance to play an international side and also perform. THere have been a couple of good discoveries in this series - like Powar, and Raina's coming of age. So, India is also not playing with an "experienced" team, so to speak. So, I think its a fair fight.

 

Three more matches to go - lets see how they progress. Winning the series already, should take pressure off the struggling players and also gives the coach and the captain lot of choices to experiment and try out different things and give more youngsters a better shot.

 

Keep playing guys, and keep up the good work.

Continuing problems and no solutions

My internet accessing adventure is still going on. My landlord is now making it more and more difficutlt for me. He keeps promising me that he will get everything done "tomorrow" but nothing ever has happened as yet. So, the proverbial "tomorrow" is still very far away.

 

In the mean while I am only getting more and more frustrated with the turn of things, because I dont feel good without an internet connection. I am out of touch with all my friends and family (atleast compared to what I would have liked ). I feel restrained in the absence of a decent internet connection.

 

But, its probably that habits die hard - and i have probably just got too used to the ease of having an internet connection - till now.

 

Still hoping for things to work out - in terms of priorities, obtaining an internet connection is top for me at the moment. I also need to plan out my future endeavours and plan out what i want to do next. I think I might go in for another degree (like an MBA or another masters in my line of career). Or maybe just change my job. I dont know how to approach this yet. Its a big problem and needs careful thinking and planning.

 

 

Another Day

Another day at the office goes along.

 

The day started with a three hour meeting. Hopefully there will not be any more meeting for today, atleast that way, I can get some serious work done from my end. There is definetely a limit to the number of meetings you should organise, but aparently my boss doesnt believe in any such dictum. He just loves calling and attending meetings, and as far as i can see, thats pretty much all that he does.

 

I am feeling this more and more. I have concerns about the way he is running things all around. I think he is making too many arbitrary decisions without properly communicatng it to the concerned people. Well, thats ok with me - i mean, that should not be my problem but hte problem of the guy whose toes he is stepping on. No..no..thats not worrying me. As the team leader, he makes these decisions, but asks us to implement them. Thats when I start getting cold feet. And that too, without properly even communicating it with us, whom he expects to implement things.

 

Let me start at the beginning itself - so that I can clarify it to myself. I think I started loosing trust on him, when he made decisions, asked us to follow them (which we did, hardly too much to ask), but later backed off and reversed his stand when faced with pressure from others who were affected by it - saying that he had said "thing y", while we just interpreted it as "thing x" or something like that. So, he basically put the blame on us and our lack of understanding of what he expected of us. Thats not even an excuse, because if you are a team leader, then you are also accountable for the actions of the team as a whole and of its individual members, and cannot get away blaming it on "communication glitches" and "inadequecies". Thats when I could go no longer believing what he says - because he might as well just change his stance (believe me - it does not take a lot to convince him of anything and then again counter-convince him 5 minutes later!!! :D) and then blame the others for it.

 

So, now, its reached a stage, where the "team" idea is defeated because my peers or me dont trust him anymore. I dont trust him to back me up on something or even atleast back himself on what he decided or said. Thats the whole issue. But that hasnt stopped him from jumping the gun and romping around making changes and taking decisions which go beyond our team and has dependencies and impacts on other team and lot of other things. And then when they come back with issues, well, he just backs off.

 

Thus, the situation is such now that I insist on getting everything in writing from him. But I have noticed that he is very dimplomatic with this and usually writes it in very general terms and deals non-specifically.

 

Anyway, lets see how it goes. I frankly dont know what to do with a host of issues that are cropping up but I cant resolve because he is not ready to make a decision in writing (he is always ready wiht a tit-tat answer, but will never writes a mail communicating it).

 

As a simple eg: I had some issue, that was raised by a couple of people and required a decision beyond my authority and so I sent him a mail to escalate the issue, so that I could have a proper directive from him. Only that he just walked up to me some time later on and said - do this..this..this...etc..but never replied to the mail, not even when I insisted so that the others involved could be kept in the loop. He at his level can make such a decision and communicate it, but I at my level cannot!! Thats my he is my boss!

 

Its a strange conundrum, and me and my colleagues are intrigued by it. We all know that this is certainly an issue now, but we dont know how to solve it!

Frustrated and Fuming

This place is frankly frustrating for me. I just dont like whats going on in my life right now. Nothing seems to be going or working out in a manner I would have liked to. I just cant even make a list of things I like to change in my life, because it might just include nearly everything going on at the moment.

 

Getting an internet connection at home is turning out to be an adventure in itself. I just dont know why its taking so long, and everytime I get to hear abt some new excuse/reason, why its difficult and time-consuming, if at all possible (only if I have the patience to persevere)

 

I have been putting on weight, non-stop. The food I eat is mostly crap and I am running out of options to eat. Nearly all of it is not good food anyway.

 

The work in my office is also getting me down. Its not any more interesting, and is becomign routine. On top of that - there is the usual complain abt having a boss who hardly himself doesnt know whats good and whats not. Most of time, he just manages to get us into additional and more useless work. Thats a common complain, I hear. I just wonder why? Is it psychological. I hope it is not!!

 

But the point is I am getting on the edge everyday. I am going to moody bouts where I come to the conclusion that I need some changes in my life.

 

Mood : Pensive and frustrated.!!