Polling stations now just a mouse click away in Kerala
Thiruvananthapuram: Locating the polling booths will be just a mouse click away for voters in Kerala, where preparations are in full swing for the April 10 Lok Sabha elections. Seeking to help voters to find out their respective polling stations and thus to bring maximum number of voters to exercise their franchise, Chief Electoral Officer in the state has launched a ‘Find Your Polling Booth’ option in its official website. Those who want to locate their polling booths can directly log into the Chief Electoral Officer’s website and use the interactive map faciliy in it, official sources here said. If one touches the ‘find your polling booth’ tab, the exact location of the booth and its route will appear on the screen. Voters can search the booths by entering their electoral photo ID card number or by selecting a district along with details like his name, house name and so on, they said. It will also provide them various routes to reach their polling station. Information about the polling booth building and respective booth level officer’s name and number would also be available, Commission sources said. More than 21,000 polling stations are there in the 20 Lok Sabha constituencies in Kerala. The main political battle in the state is between ruling Congress-led UDF and CPI(M) headed LDF. Besides them, BJP has also put up candidates in all the seats in a bid to make it a triangular contest. With 2,888 stations, northern district of Malappuram constituency tops the list, followed by Thiruvananthapuram and Ernakulam–2178 and 2027 polling booths respectively. Kerala has a total number of 24251942 voters, including 12570439 women this time. (PTI)
Swine flu claims second life in Vizag this year
Visakhapatnam: Swine flu claimed its second victim in the city this year with the death of a 27-year-old man at a private hospital on Tuesday, health officials said. “The man, who was infected with H1N1 virus, died at the hospital located in Gajuwaka area this morning. He was from Sriharipuram locality in Visakhapatnam. This is the second swine flu death in the city since January,” District Nodal Officer of the Swine Flu, Dr L B H S Devi told PTI. According to Devi, ever since the victim had returned from a tour in south India about a month back, he had started suffering from health problems like cough, cold, bleeding from mouth, following which he was admitted to a hospital. In January this year, a 27-year-old pregnant woman had succumbed to the deadly disease here. Devi said that a house-to-house surveillance is being conducted in Visakhapatnam to find out people suffering from swine flu. (PTI)
Parties’ practice of fielding outsiders against democracy: SP
Lucknow: Samajwadi Party, which has decided not to enter the fray in Amethi and Rae Bareli, on Tuesday disapproved of BJP fielding “outsiders” from the Nehru-Gandhi pocket borough, saying such a practice was against democracy. “Fielding candidates in such a way is against democracy as they do not have much to do with local people..,” Samajwadi Party leader and chief minister Akhilesh Yadav told reporters here while replying to a question on BJP candidates announced from Amethi and Rae Bareli. Yadav said his party leadership has decided not to field candidates in Amethi and Rae Bareli against Rahul and Sonia Gandhi respectively and added that SP had not fielded candidates against them in previous elections as well. Hitting back at BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi over his dig that it would be difficult to control “Gujrat Lions” in UP, Yadav said said such statements were not required from BJP’s PM candidate as the felines had been given to the state in exchange of hyenas to Gujarat. “The lions are presently at the Lucknow Zoo and will be kept at a Lion Safari spread across 3000 acres in Etawah. Work is going on there and it will be completed soon. There were some problems due to ongoing elections,” he said. “It’s a political courtesy, he (Modi) has given us something and we have also given him something (hyenas) in exchange (to Gujarat),” he added. (PTI)
ISRO gears up for IRNSS mission, countdown to begin April 2
Chennai: The 58.30-hour countdown for the April four launch of ISRO’s PSLV-C24/IRNSS-1B Mission would start at 0644 hrs on Wednesday morning. ISRO sources here Tuesday said the launch rehearsal activities were completed successfully and the pre-countdown activities were in progress at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at the India’s spaceport of Sriharikota, about 80 km from here. The IRNSS-1B spacecraft was already integrated with the PSLV-C24 launch vehicle. The PSLV-C24, carrying the 1432 kg IRNSS-1B, will lift off from the First Launch Pad at SHAR Range at 1714 hrs on April four. During the countdown, propellants would be filled in the four-stage PSLV vehicle, the sources added. The 44.4 metre tall PSLV-C24 vehicle, with a lift off mass of 320 tons, would be ISRO’s 26th flight. It would use XL version of PSLV.This was for the sixth time ISRO would be using the ‘XL’ configuration. About 18 minutes after the lift off, the satellite would be launched into a Sub Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit with an apogee of 20,652 km and a perigee of 284 km with an inclination of 19.2 deg with respect to the equatorial plane. IRNSS-1B is the second navigation satellite of the seven satellites constriting the IRNSS space segment. (UNI)