I came across lot of people, after the first phase of General Elections for the 15th Loksabha, who had problems in voting because they didnt know what to do. So I plan to key down some information I found out about voting to help those who are yet to vote in later phases of this election.
(I tried my level best to formulate the following procedures which many of you may know so please feel free to correct if you find any mistakes)
The ideal and the most probable situation:
First of all, let me give some background of how voting works. In many places, there will be many polling stations in a polling booth (like several examination halls in an exam center). Each polling station will have a set of voters allotted to them from the total voters allotted to that booth. So most of the political parties voluntarily undertake the task of identifying the station number of a particular voter (with the provisional voters list they have). All of them, most of the times, come to your address of residence and give you a white slip which contains the polling station number twenty four hours before the election day. If nobody gave it to you twenty four hours before, you can find the polling station number from various counters setup by political parties outside polling booth. With this information, you can wait in the correct queue to cast your vote.
Problem during the election day:
Even though you have a voter id card, sometimes your name might not appear in the provisional list the political parties have. Hence they cant provide you the polling station information. This need not necessarily mean that your name is not present in the official voter’s list inside the polling booth. It is because the provisional list is released one month before the elections and the final list might have some additions/deletions. In this case, you have to wait in a random queue (preferably queue with less number of people) till you get your chance and find out polling station information from the the polling officer.
If your vote is still missing, I am afraid it is.
If you have a voter id card with wrongly spelled name, please use the same to search in the list. Please dont try to tell them your correct name as sometimes the wrong spelling will not at all be similar to your original name and polling officer might challenge your vote.
Problems before election day:
The most comon problem will be: you still didnt get your voter id card. As you may know, you can still cast your vote by producing any of the government approved id cards like passport, PAN card, driving license, ration card to confirm your identity provided your name appears in “The Final List” they have. Most of the times, it will be. So find out the polling booth address from yours neighbours and check your name in the provisional list outside the booth in the “voluntary” counters as well as in the final list inside the booth.
The second problem is if you didnt receive your voter id card AND your name was actually misspelled in “The List”. In this case, you may sometimes think that your name isn’t really in the list. So try to keep an eye on the pages they are searching and identify your photo as the polling officer or the volunteers outside will not even look at you when trying to search the list. If you find your photo, show the relevant identification documents and dont hesitate to prove that the picture with a wrong spelling of your name is actually you with the ids you have.
Also please check the Voters’ guidelines for more detailed information. Also read about Electronic Voting Machines a.k.a EVMs to decrease the burden of the polling agent a bit and quicken the election process.
One final suggestion, go as early as possible.
Happy Voting 
On the first anniversary of the Great Batch Trip of IIIT-H, I publish my long overdue post of our adventures in a snow-point near manali.
For most of us, it was the first time. It was dirty near the foot of the hills, where we parked our vehicles. But soon the shining white snow started to appear beneath our feet once we started the ascent up the hills. Many groups started from various points and gave up the adventure at different heights. After nearly two to three hours of climbing with occasional snowball fights, around twenty to thirty of us reached a road.
Of course there was more to climb, but everyone was exhausted. It was precisely the moment where even a staunch supporter of atheism would say “Oh God! I love you” for we saw a middle aged man cooking maggi. It was a win-win situation for both the cook and us. Our numbers coupled with our eating habits, made that fellow more happy.
After this eating spree, the determined souls continued to climb up, the lazy ones slid down the same way they came up and finally the curious ones decided to explore another route down.
We spotted a place to get down. But it was not entirely visible. There were several trees and a big rock obscuring our view. Hence, decided to climb down to check the place before starting a slide. While Revanth, Prafulla, Ravi Teja and Shashank were trying to find another decent place to climb down, Rahul and I started our descent. Thanks to those boots we wore, we could be able to gradually dig steps as we went down (to come back to that maggi place without much effort if we dont find a place to slide down). May be because of all those Discovery and NGC shows I watched, I realised too much time in open snow is dangerous. So, while going down we moved towards trees to take some rest and plan the next course of action.
I always thought that those guys were making too much fuss when they say “These stunts are performed by professionals. Do not try this at home” in ads, action series etc. The next twenty five minutes from that tree changed that entirely. Thinking “This will just be a walk in the park” I marked a concave-parabolic path in my mind from this tree to the tree at around 100 meters away.
Halfway through, my foot slipped while digging the steps. Its 3′o clock in the afternoon and there was enough energy from the sun the whole day, to start the melting of ice at our altitude. Panic struck. Suddenly, I felt like I was in the middle of the bridge of Khazadum and Balrog (the Sun) was trying to push me into the abyss (yeah it was actually a closer-to-90-degree drop and god-knows-how-deep). I told Rahul to not come in this route and saw Prafulla and Revanth almost making it to the other tree I was going to.
Meanwhile, Ravi Teja was stuck near a tree after realising its dangerous to go down further and losing the stick, which was essential near that place of his to climb, disabling him to come up. And immediately, a cry from Shashank. But he was not there on the road, like he said he would be to monitor the whole situation. He was, instead, on a rock 50 feet below the road. When I asked what happened, Revanth replied “He slid by accident”.
This increased panic in me. There were not even rocks in the least resistance path the earth would pull me. I increased my pace, ditched digging as we decided not to take my route back and almost reached my destination tree when I slipped. Fortunately, Prafulla was already there to catch me as I was not that far from the tree.
After some time, some locals came to rescue Shashank. The rest somehow regained our courage to climb up and Samba waited for us near the vehicles to scold us. Poor fellow was waiting near the vehicles for that past hour, as the scheduled time for our cabs was running out. The determined ones who joined the curious ones after each’s adventure, came down to see all mud with no snow.
(Next post: The trek which never seemed to end)
Simply put. No adjective in any language will describe the greatness of the show. This post is to explain why I like this show so much that I don’t even hesitate for a second to call it the best show humans have ever created so far.
The story, screenplay and the production values are really amazing.
A brief intro for the ones who haven’t heard about this show: Human civilizations occupied 12 worlds in a star system. When war broke among these 12 worlds, they started research on making centurions a.k.a cylons to help each world fight battles. But like most of machines in other shows, they rebelled and the 12 colonies of Humans united to fight against the Cylons. After having a unified Colonial government, they manufactured Battlestars.
Story/Screenplay/Direction:
Thankfully, except for season 2, the production company didnt involve in the making of the series. The writers/directors were left to do whatever they wanted and we all know how such a move succeeds in many cases. Combining two of the famous sci-fi concepts: Man vs Machine and Space wars, they hit the target in the begining of the show itself. Though some episodes seem boring, they managed to justify the boredom they imparted upon the viewers by cleverly using them as back stories for later episodes.
Visual Effects/Action:
Here are the sample videos. You will love the space fights. Battling in open spaces, fighting around planets, fighting on planets whose star will go supernova and as a fitting finale for the series, they even fight in the gravity well of a black hole.
My Favourite Scenes/Acts
(SPOILER ALERT! please select the text to view)
- Battlestar Galactica Jumping into the atmosphere of New Caprica to release the vipers in order to provide air support for the rebel ground troops.
- Assassination plans of Admiral Helena Cain of Battlestar Pegasus and Commander William Adama of Battlestar Galactica when Colonial forces successfully destroy the resurrection ship of the Cylons.
- The strategy of Colonials in order to occupy a tylium rich moon from the Cylons who already have a permanent and secured outposts on that moon.
- Trail of Gauis Baltar who was accused of treason for collaborating with the Cylons on New Caprica.
- Mutiny attempt on Admiral William Adama by Tactical Officer Felix Gaeta.
- Final battle scene near a black hole to rescue Hera Agathon, first Human-Cylon hybrid.
More about the miniseries and TV series in the accompanied links.
If you call yourself a sci-fi fan, you really should watch this show.
So say we all.
Cruising at 80kmph, he noticed a slim, loose haired, stylish lady at a distance. Noticing her gesturing for a lift, he got excited and changed to the slower lane. He came to a halt in front of her. But to his surprise, she glanced, ignored and walked past him to shout “Auto!! Punjagutta”
Rohith, one day, decided to plot his journey time to office vs the time he starts at home to predict the traffic pattern on that route. He noted the timings for five days: starting at different times, stopping for nothing except traffic.
On sixth day, a natural phenomenon that could easily jeopardize the mission posed a threat. But to his surprise, this was his fastest journey, with no traffic signals or congestions. He parked his bike in office, took out the helmet and screamed “I am never doing these kind of stupid experiments again!” while scratching his head violently.
PS: As 55 fiction is too hard for me, thought of starting 99 fiction. Because I wanted to write something than do nothing.
This is how different people belong to IIIT-H review any Felicity.
UG3 (The batch that takes the responsibility of organising it) : Felicity 20xx rocks. Best Felicity ever. Awesome organising, wonderful coordination. కేక, తురుము మరియు కత్తి.
UG4 (The batch which organised the felicity before the one we are reviewing) : What the heck is happening? Where are the crowd? This definitely is not a better felicity than ours.
UG2 and UG1: Why are UG3 even boasting about their organisational capabilities? No proper planning. How can they not even think about such a trivial detail about this/that event? Let our time come. We will rock it.
Alumni: What is happening in the campus? Felicity has changed. This, definitely, is not what we expected.
Footnote:
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based on the reviews of Felicity 05, 06, 07, 08, 09.
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Dual Degree students’ reviews are not considered because of lack of statistically satisfying or acceptable data.
Finally!! After 10 years, a dream came true.
Orion Observer 70mm Ataz Refractor
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PS: Assembling it is not such a PIA as I thought it would be.
PS1: Tonight, I dine in heavens 
