Arun Gupta from Sun Microsystems interviewed me at the 4th IndicThreads.com Conference On Java about Java today, IndicThreads, the IndicThreads Conferences & the software developer communities in India.
src- Arun Gupta’s Blog
Harshad Oak's personal blog about Society, Science, Reform, Religion, India, Pune, Politics, Books, Tech…
Arun Gupta from Sun Microsystems interviewed me at the 4th IndicThreads.com Conference On Java about Java today, IndicThreads, the IndicThreads Conferences & the software developer communities in India.
src- Arun Gupta’s Blog
I ran the Pune Marathon 09 (10 kms category) and finished in 1 hour 26 minutes which was more or less as per my expectation. I think I could have shaved off 5-10 minutes from the time, but with few distance markers along the way, I couldn’t pace my run properly so left my final acceleration for too late in the run. Read more
My presentation on ‘Internet For Business Development’ at Barcamp Pune, Nov 2009. The learning was part of my preparations while designing the Internet For Business Development & Internet Entrepreneurship course for IndicThreads Education.The session gives an overview of how the Internet has changed business and business development activities forever & how today’s entrepreneurs & business development professionals need to harness the power of technology and the Internet to deliver better sales, stronger brands & a larger customer base for the enterprise.
The election results for the Maharashtra state assembly elections are supposed to be announced tomorrow (22nd Oct). Like every prior election, the Election Commission has again failed to provide a proper & functional website where you can get the election results. However your best bet still would be to try the Chief Election Commissioner for Maharashtra website http://ceo.maharashtra.gov.in/ or the Election Commission India site for the Maharashtra Vidhan Sabha Results.
Most of the sites that provided election voter list search for the 2009 Loksabha elections seem to have bombed for the Maharashtra State Elections. Read more
No Indian has anywhere near as much scope to change the destiny of other Indians as an elected representative in government. So like it or hate it, we have to take our netas and elections seriously. The assembly elections (Vidhan Sabha) for the state of Maharashtra in India are upon us and 13th Oct 09 is voting day. My vote lies in the Shivajinagar constituency in Pune. So here’s my analysis of the top 3 contenders for the ShivajiNagar seat in Pune city. I do not think I have any deep rooted party loyalties and my choice of party in past elections has varied based on the quality of the candidate. I am attempting to provide my analysis of the candidates & not their parties. Also I do not claim to be unbiased, so please apply your judgement. Read more
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. Read more
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. Read more
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. Read more
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? Read more
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. Read more
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. Read more
Data as on : May 16 2009 1:32PM Read more
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. Read more
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. Read more
I would love to be proven wrong and see the Maharashtra Premier League (MPL) 20-20 cricket league be successful. The MPL concept sure had the potential, but unfortunately the format and packaging makes it seem like the MPL will not deliver. Read more
The election results for the India General Elections 2009 will be announced on the 16th of May. Pune city voted long back, on the 23rd of April 09. So it’s going to be a long wait before we know if the candidate we voted for will actually make it to the LokSabha, the House Of the People and the lower house of the Parliament Of India. Read more
Google and Hindustan Times have created a very useful site where you can get the latest election news, MP profiles, constituency statistics, candidate quotes, polling booth locations and more, all personalized to your location. Just specify your city or town, and get election information relevant to you. Read more
At just 40%, Pune saw it’s worst ever voter turnout for the Loksabha elections. Mumbai was slightly better at 44%. The dismal voter turnout numbers have shocked most of educated India. Political leaders are smirking on TV saying things like “You blame us politicians for not caring about the country, but even the ordinary citizen does not care.” I have no insider info on the matter, but am just trying to apply some common sense to figure out what could have gone wrong. Read more
Doing some final checks before I finalize the candidate I would be voting for in tomorrows election. Just visited the websites of all the top candidates to check if they have something new to say. Nothing new there. A couple of sites seem to have actually gone down. Next looking at http://myneta.info/pune for a quick and easy to read synopsis of the affidavits filed by the Pune Loksabha candidates. The details of 3 candidates including BJP’s Anil Shirole are missing from the sheet. Read more
Below are my short takeaways about who I think are the top 6 candidates. There are 10s of candidates contesting for the Pune seat, so there could be other worthy candidates, unfortunately I haven’t heard of them. Read more
Campaigning for the Pune Loksabha elections has ended, so thought I would have a quick look at what was good and bad about the election campaign in Pune. Read more
Watching politicians debating about what seemed like non-issues to me, got me wondering about what are the real election issues and what are the qualities that the electorate look for in a MP. Thought why not create a simple ranking based survey to get the info from friends and readers of HarshadOak.com. Please fill out the survey – India Loksabha Election Issues – Candidate Attributes Survey . It will take not more than 3-4 min to complete the survey and you will help us all better understand what matters to Indians. I will make the statistics collected through this survey freely and publicly available at http://www.HarshadOak.com on 1st May 2009. Thank you.
In a previous post “Wealth & Assets Of Candidates“, I mentioned how you can access the affidavits filed by the election candidates. However there’s an easier way than having to go through the affidavits of all candidates. Check out http://myneta.info/. The site provides an easy and tabular comparison of the various candidates contesting in a constituency. Read more