Voters can pick a time slot to cast their votes, avoiding long queues in MP

Mandsaur Collector OP Shrivastva said the queue-less voting facility would 'disappoint' many voters because standing in serpentine queues was part and parcel of the voting process

To queue or not to queue

Bhopal Collector Sudama Khade informed officials at a review meeting in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh on Monday that the state administration had organised queue-less voting in a few polling stations. Voters could pick a time slot to cast their votes, avoiding long queues. Not all were impressed. For one, Mandsaur Collector OP Shrivastva had a problem: “Even our honourable President and Prime Minister exercise their voting rights standing in a queue.” He added that the queue-less voting facility would “disappoint” many voters because standing in serpentine queues was part and parcel of the voting process. Chief Electoral Officer V L Kantarao stepped in to assuage his concern. The new initiative was being tried “on an experimental basis and only in a few booths”, he assured Shrivastva.

Read our full coverage on Madhya Pradesh Assembly Elections 2018

Sound of music

Martin Ney, Germany's ambassador to New Delhi, and his wife Gabriele Ney, are accomplished flautists. During his posting in  India, Ney has hosted a series of Western classical concerts. He has also performed at the India Habitat Centre in New Delhi and at Mumbai's National Centre for Performing Arts. The Neys are known in New Delhi's diplomatic circuit to host musical evenings for a closed gathering. Now, the German embassy has taken the next step to open the concerts to the general public. It has invited two renowned classical musicians from Germany — Gerald Hambitzer, who plays the harpsichord, and Bettina von Dombois-Hambitzer, a violinist to perform at New Delhi's Bikaner House on Wednesday. The Neys will also join the two musicians on stage to perform masterpieces by composers such as Johann Joachim Quantz and Georg Philipp Telemann.

Mind your language

The use of the phrase "gorakh dhanda" to describe confusion/unethical practices will be a punishable offence if the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is voted back to power in Rajasthan, the party said in its poll manifesto released in Jaipur on Tuesday. The party said the words hurt the sentiments of the followers of Saint Gorakhnath. The party also promised to include information on Gorakhnath in the textbooks issued by the Rajasthan State Textbook Board. A national memorial of Gorakhnath will be built and the mutt or aasan of the Nath community renovated. A library of Gorakhnath's literature related to yoga and tantra will also be set up. Jodhpur is the main centre of the Nath community in Rajasthan. Incidentally, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is a follower of Gorakhnath.