How to convert current date to epoch timestamp?

That should do it

import time

date_time = '29.08.2011 11:05:02'
pattern = '%d.%m.%Y %H:%M:%S'
epoch = int(time.mktime(time.strptime(date_time, pattern)))
print epoch

Your code will behave strange if 'TZ' is not set properly, e.g. 'UTC' or 'Asia/Kolkata'

So, you need to do below

>>> import time, os
>>> d='2014-12-11 00:00:00'
>>> p='%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S'
>>> epoch = int(time.mktime(time.strptime(d,p)))
>>> epoch
1418236200
>>> os.environ['TZ']='UTC'
>>> epoch = int(time.mktime(time.strptime(d,p)))
>>> epoch
1418256000