President of India Election Drama [update]

[update] Dr Kalam seems to have given up. Probably NDA and others will be forced to support the UPA candidate. If I understand correctly the special qualifications for this candidate's nomination (and therefore for this person to be our next president) are:
1) She is a lady (and we should have some lady as President since we haven't had it till now :Congress' reason)
2) She is Maharastrian (Reason for Shiv Sena's support for her)
3) Shivraj Patil is not very competant for the post (Communist's complaint, well what is the meaning of competence here ?)
WOW, great work Indian politicians. Next time we should also consider the Caste, Race, minimum age of 55 years and some disabilities before we nominate ppl for such posts.

The presidents' election drama has become little more interesting after current president Dr. A.P.J Abdul Kalam agreed to reconsider standing for the post. The comments from Political leaders from UPA government not only shows their attitude towards what one would think of a post of great honour and responsibility.
The current presidential candidate, who is most likely to win just because of numbers supporting her is Pratibha Patil, A name most ppl would not have heard of and for which I had to do a Google search to know abt. Some interesting things described by wikipedia article on her.

Election to be held on 19 July 2007.^[15]. She emerged as a compromise candidate after the Left parties would not agree to the nomination of present Home Minister Shivraj Patil, who is widely viewed as bordering on incompetence in this important post. At that point, Sonia Gandhi proposed Pratibha Patil's name.

This makes her most likely to become the first female President of India. UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi described her nomination as a "historic occasion" in India'a 60th year of independence.

Seems like she got the nomination for lack of any better candidate and the fact that she will be the first female president of the contry. The article also describes her "innocent" remark about the Purdah system, I could only ROFL after reading that one. This can only be an indication on what great knowledge and thoughts this lady would have on more current things of concernt to the country like Software Technology, self reliance and other aspects on which Dr Kalam was praised throughout the world for his views.

Whats more interesting is the kind of remarks UPA leader have against the current President, who by all means is the best person to take up the post. Some of them say he should exit gracefully. Some like Laalu are suggesting him to Retire. What a shame to all this leaders.

The educated folks would clearly see what problems UPA has with a president who has in past returned some stupid bills (The president in India any way has small control on these bills) including the Office of Profit one. His views of advancing the country are certainly one most policians won't be able to digest much. Lets see what more get to witness on this Drama.

Hyderabad's Traffic's basic rule: Just Horn and Overtake

Somethings are so integral part of the system that everyone learns them irrespective of whether they are correct or not. I am talking about traffic in Hyderabad (may be in other cities too, not sure).

I had heard stories about how act of blowing horn was called as "Honking" in US and that it wasn't needed to do it at any time other than pointing someone their gross mistake. It was hard for me to believe so until I got a chance to drive in California.

As you drive the car the first temptation is to blow the horn as soon as you see some one near to your vehicle, at each an every corner of the road and also when you just want to rush past some one (overtake them). Over time I realized it was much easy to not bother thinking about "Honking" someone at any place. The traffic just moves without anyone 'signalling' anything with his vehicle's horn.

Come back to Hyderabad, the first few drives you just can't avoid cursing someone when he horns you just because he 'thinks' he need to inform you about his presence and to make sure you don't come on his way all of a sudden. The mindset is to think about what mistake you commited that some one is 'honking you'

Now even after we have lanes and directions marked on them, ppl hardly bother to go in the lane and try overtaking by shifting lanes appropriately. They just blow horn and want you to get aside from their way. This situation simply allows ppl to halt anywhere on the road and assume "kisi ko problem hogi to horn bajayega and then we will think about moving". Reminds me of how one of my colleage visiting from Mountain View was shocked to see cows walking on the road. Aren't we so used to the horn and go behaviour that a cow is nothing different/difficult for us to handle on the road. :)

It isn't hard to see why there is always a mess at the Hitech city Chauraha, every one just believes in horning and finding their way even when traffic signals ask them to stop. My colleage tells me that traffic is much more organized in Bangalore and Chennai compared to Hyderabad. May be its time traffic police gets little serious about issuing tickets (yes, they have started following the ticketing system of sending the challan to ur home, rather than asking instant payment).

New 7 Wonders voting crap

Many ppl have been forwarding mesg's about voting Taj Mahal in top 7 wonders of the world. First there was a Online Petition, then sending SMS to indiainfo.com and lately we get a URL dedicated for this purpose www.new7wonders.com.

Isn't it interesting as to who is the authority to judge such an important 'competition'. From wikipedia, I came to know about this For-profit corporation called NOWC who supposedly is the authority.

The New Seven Wonders of the World is a proposed revision of the Seven Wonders of the World, organized by a Swiss-based, for-profit corporation called New Open World Corporation (NOWC). The selection is being made by free and paid votes, through telephone or online. The first vote is free to registered members and additional votes may be purchased through a payment to NOWC. In addition to the sale of votes, NOWC relies on private donations, the sale of merchandise such as shirts and cups, and revenue from selling broadcasting rights

Isn't it awesome, create some kind of online polling system, Ask ppl to vote for their favourites and also allow rich ppl to vote extra number of times.

Why should someone even care if Taj Mahal makes it so such a senseless, crappy list compiled by selling the positions to who pays heavier.