Politics has never interested me. I stay away from the anything that has to do with it including skipping the political columns in newspapers and changing the channel on the T.V. whenever it is on. In fact, it’s very difficult finding channel worth watching nowadays because of the fervour with which the Indian Elections 2009 are being covered – I’ve found recourse in three books which I am reading simultaneously; you’ll find them listed at the end of the article.
So why am I writing about politics? Well, it so happened that I am planning a trip to my hometown and wanted to know the Indian elections dates. I don’t want my travel clashing with the polling dates especially because my two boys (monsters) are with me. With “so much trouble in the world” (as Marley sang), I’d like to have a peaceful journey to my beloved city – thank you very much.
Sponsored Links
Trying to find the Indian elections 2009 dates on the web
I obviously turned to the web for the Indian elections 2009 dates assuming that since everyone’s is going gaga over the world’s largest democracy going to the polls, I would get the information in a minute. It turned out to be an ordeal!
Searching for “Indian elections dates” in Google was an eye-opener. I don’t think it was Google’s fault – maybe it’s an incorrect search query or maybe the information is just not available.
The first page I came across was from Indian-elections.com which seems to have outdated information. I am in a major hurry because it’s office closing time and the travel agent needs to be confirmed my flight dates. I don’t find anything – click, tab closed! FYI, the web site did have the required dates and I came across them only when I started researching for this article.
The next was an edu site – indianelections09.umbc.edu. The page had a link to a PDF document on the Election Commission of India web site – click – load in a new tab (can take its own sweet time to download… maybe by then I’ll get what I want).
IndiaMike.com’s page ranks high but unfortunately insufficient information – close!
Where are all the Indian news channels web sites? Not a single one in the top 5, though, found a page from Irish times.
Finally, get Indian elections dates at India Buzz but nothing compares what I was about to see. The page at Maps of India web site was stupendous. It displays a Map of India with five buttons labelled Phase 1, Phase 2… You move the mouse cursor over a button and you not only get to see the 2009 election dates but also the sectors in which the polling’s going to take place (the rest of the map is greyed out). What I also noticed that the developers of mapsofindia.com have done some serious SEO on the web site including linking from their logo! Great work and my congratulations to the company – Compare Infobase Limited.
But shouldn’t the first source for election dates be the official web site?
The pleasure I got when checking out MapsofIndia.com (I have known about them for years), was soon to be turned to dust.
Many Indian public sector undertakings (including some pure government sites, as we shall see) have horrid web sites – visually unappealing, most of the times non-functional and splattered with Google AdSense ads (Lord, we want money from all sources). But if they don’t load at all, particularly when they are most needed, what’s the point?
The Election Commission of India web site (http://www.eci.gov.in/) refused to open for me. I came to know of it when I checked the tab that was supposed to load the PDF file (refer above). OK, I thought, “maybe the PDF is missing“; but no! The main web site too could not be found! I loaded the cached version from Google – got it, but the navigation is all out of place on Chrome (love the browser – Go Metal!). My two cents: I suppose ECI.gov.in suddenly had a burst of visitors and the web server kind of crashed. Obviously, I can be wrong (and I hope I am). The cached version of the site (apart from the navigation problem) seems a really good resource and should be back soon.
Here is the list of books I am reading:
- The Occult by Colin Wilson (one of my favourite writers or maybe he picks up topics that have always held my interest)
- Chili Dawgs Always Bark at Night by Lewis Grizzard – rants of a southerner and has old jokes – you can give this a miss.
- A Guinea Pig’s History of Biology by Jim Endersby – great book for all who love Biology.
