Get the Dropdown Selected Index and Text

Some times we need to get the selected item text and index of the drop down in asp.net using client script.I faced a problem in getting this two values using jQuery . At last i got the solution.So i thought to share this information to the learner's of jQuery.Please see this example to understand clearly.
<%@ Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeBehind="CascadingDropDown.aspx.cs"
    Inherits="CascadingExample.CascadingDropDown" %>

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head runat="server">
    <title>Cascading DropDownLists With ASP.NET and jQuery</title>
    <style type="text/css">
        .ddl_style
        {
            text-align: justify;
            font-family: Verdana;
        }
        .para_Style
        {
            text-align: justify;
        }
     </style>
    <script type="text/javascript" src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.4.1.js"></script>
    <script type="text/javascript">
        $(document).ready(function () {
            var ddl = $("select[name$=ddlCountries]");
                     ddl.bind("change keyup", function () {
                if ($(this).val() != "-1") {
                alert("Index:"+ $("select[name$=ddlCountries] option:selected").val()+"</br> Selected Text:"+$("select[name$=ddlCountries] option:selected").text());
                } else {
                         alert("Index:"+ $("select[name$=ddlCountries] option:selected").val()+"</br> Selected Text:"+$("select[name$=ddlCountries] option:selected").text());              
                }
            });
        });
     </script>
</head>
<body>
    <form id="form1" runat="server">
    <div>
                     <asp:DropDownList ID="ddlCountries" runat="server" AppendDataBoundItems="true" CssClass="ddl_style">
                         <asp:ListItem Text="(Please Select)" Value="-1" Selected="True" />
                         <asp:ListItem Text="INDIA" Value="0"/>
                         <asp:ListItem Text="USA" Value="1"/>
                         <asp:ListItem Text="JAPAN" Value="2"/>
                     </asp:DropDownList>             
    </div>
    </form>
</body>
</html>


If you feel any problem just ask me.
Happy Coding :-)