Today, the 29th of March 2008, Earth Hour will be celebrated. Which means that around 20 cities across the world are going to switch off their lights from 8pm to 9pm today. This is purportedly to increase awareness about Global Warming. And yes, before you ask, no Indian city is participating in this initiative. Everyone is grumbling over this pathetic response shown by India .
Well, on a less serious note, I really don’t think any Indian city needs to participate in any initiative like the Earth Hour. We already have stuff like compulsory load shedding being thrust on us. We already save tons of carbon emissions by bearing these power cuts. Let us enjoy the wonders of electricity at least when we have it!
As G.Singh fromGurgaon says in a comment on The Times of India website,
We have been celebrating Earth Hour for so many years in India. With electricity being cut off for hours by our State Electricity boards, what is a better way to show solidarity for this cause. I think most of the Indians are life members of this elite club of not using electricity. For a change the world joined us for one hour on March 29th. But we shall carry on our endeavour for this cause without fail for the next few years thanks to our government’s planning on power generation.
Heh. I loved that comment!
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Yep, remember my post on the IndiBlogger Bloggers’ Meet at Pune. A slightly modified version of that post has been published in a well-respected weekly tabloid called Intelligent Pune (March 28th issue).
They have also printed a few photos of the meet. However, there is one photo which is supposed to be mine. Well, it is not. It is Vineet Rajan a.k.a. Vinni in that photo. I guess it was a small mistake on Intelligent Pune’s part. It happens sometimes You can see my not-so-handsome photo here. I am the one at the extreme right.
However, the point to be noted is, my article got published in a paper
This one’s from the Times of India. I guess the backdrop of this ad is the day when Mumbai was flooded by almost 944 mm of rainfall in around 24 hours. Yep, you guessed it right. The day is the 26th of July 2005.
Yesterday, as I was just brooding (in fact, day-dreaming is a more accurate description ), I hit upon a new adage which is more representative of the modern era. Here goes,
The keyboard is mightier than the AK-47.
Eeeks! I know it sucks, but I felt that I should share it with you guys. I guess ‘keyboard’ perfectly replaces ‘pen’, but I feel that there can be a better word to replace ’sword’. Any ideas?
First things first. Whenever you have time, do visit this blog: Unchaahi. It’s a relatively new blog campaigning against female foeticide (and infanticide) and Roop Rai (the blog owner) seems to be really serious about it. For all we know, this may eventually turn out to be a great campaign in the future. The least we can do is to be aware of how the female sex is being systematically eliminated in India. I wish you all the best in your campaign, Roop!
OK, now let’s get back to the animated film the headline of this post talks about. This film has been made by Mr. Hardeep Singh of the Pumpkin Academy of Digital Arts. It is arguably the first animated film on female foeticide. I came to see this film on Roop’s blog here.
And the same video has been embedded below.
It’s heart-rending I wonder how anyone can have the heart to commit such a heinous crime as female foeticide. I for one, can at the most kill a mosquito. You give me anything bigger than that, and I can’t do it. Against this backdrop, I have heard that in a few villages, newly born female babies are drowned in a cauldron of milk. Savages!
And yes, you guys may also like to see this video. Unchaahi: An Introduction.
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OK, I know you guys may have already read tons of material analysing India’s shameful failure in qualifying for the Beijing Olympics (this happened for the first tme in 80 years). That was the one reason I was hesitant to write on this topic for a long time now. But a speech at the India Today Conclave by Bishen Singh Bedi compelled me to write on this topic.
This is how he started his speech,
I would like to take you back to a time when India beat New Zealand in a five-day Test match. In those days Indian used to get Rs. 50 a day for a Test match. But Indians won the game in four days and the Indian Board deducted Rs.50. That was the incentive of winning the game in four days.
Heh. Rs. 250 for playing a Test match? And money deducted if the match finishes in less than five days? Incredible! But of course, that was years ago. Now, let’s get back to the present. When India recently won the triangular series in Australia, Team India got a bonus of Rs. 10 crore! That is over and above their usual match fee (which in itself is quite a large amount).
If cricket could be such a money-spinner in India, we can only imagine how much money-spinning potential sports like hockey and football must be having. Let’s be honest, one-day cricket is a dreadfully drawn-out event. Each innings lasts for a never-ending three and a half hours. I mostly fall asleep in the middle overs. They are damn boring. Effectively, we end up spending no less that eight hours seeing a match. Almost a whole day wasted! And still we love cricket
Contrast this with hockey. Each half lasts for 35 minutes and the match is over in under two hours. And to top it all, every moment is filled with excitement and adrenaline. There are hardly any sleep-inducing moments. And of course, there are almost no adverisements; unlike in cricket, where we are force-fed advertisements every five minutes
So why isn’t hockey the money-spinner that it could be in India? The answer to this question can be found by analysing Indian cricket’s success story. Cricket has had great administrators like Dalmiya, Bindra et al. They have done a great job in promoting cricket. They are the guys who have raked in the moolah, so to say, for Indian cricket. And therefore, Indian cricket is where it is today.
On the other side, we have K.P.S. Gill doing the best he can to kill hockey in India for the past 14 years. I wonder why he is still hanging on. Has he become so shameless? What hockey needs is great administrators who can ensure that talented youngsters get a platform where they can display their skills. Merit (not stupid internal politics and regionalism) should be the only criterion for selecting a player in the national team. Everything else will follow; sponsors, money, crowds in stadiums, everything…
If only we could kick Mr. Gill out of the Indian Hockey Federation for a start…
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Sometimes you read a political news story which at the very first look, doesn’t make you cry (most of them do). First you read it, then you feel like laughing out loud (which you do), but as you think more deeply about it, you feel frustrated and become angry when you realise how the hard-earned money you pay as taxes is wasted on frivolous grounds.
Well, I just read such a news report two days ago. DNA reports,
Chappals have often been the cause of controversies at five-star hotels. Now, the Deputy Chairman of the State Legislative Council Vasant Davkhare wants a committee to study why sandals are not allowed in pubs.
Davkhare on Monday asked the state government to constitute an all-party committee to study the rules and regulations laid by the restaurants, pubs and discos in the city.
Last year, a few Marathi actors were stopped from entering a suburban five-star hotel’s pub because they were wearing Kolhapuri chappals.
Speechless, I read. An all-party committee to study why chappals aren’t allowed in pubs? Heck, even I (a naive Indian) can tell you that. It’s because chappals ain’t the ‘in’ thing. They ain’t hip, they ain’t fashionable.
And no, the story doesn’t end there. You didn’t read the reply of Deputy Chief Minister R R Patil to that demand, did you?
He replied,
The rules are set by the hotel management taking into account the safety of consumers. Chappals are not allowed since they are unsafe for the consumers as well as others on the floor of the pub. The actors were offered the shoes, but they refused them.
Honestly, do we really need to discuss all that in the State Legislative Council? Aren’t there far more pressing and important issues that need to be discussed? Please end this farce, dear politicos!
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I wanted to write on this issue a long time ago. But somehow it didn’t materialise. So, I guess I will do it now. Yep, I am talking about the loan waiver our respected Finance Minister P. Chidambaram announced in Budget 2008 presented on February 28, 2008. A full Rs. 60000 crore of farmer loans was waived by the man who, in the 1990s, unleashed the Indian economy, due to which we are an emerging superpower now.
Now you would have expected a budget which makes good economic sense from a man of his caliber. But, burdened no doubt by political considerations, the Finance Minister has made this unabashedly populist announcement. So how many farmers will actually benefit from this? Well, just about 23 percent of them will, because that is the percentage of farmers having access to institutional credit. And the marginal farmers (farmers having less than two hectares of land) will hardly be the ones to benefit here, though they are the ones towards whom this loan waiver is targeted. Most of the marginal farmers take loans from private moneylenders, not banks. So basically these farmers have little or no relief when you look at the fine print of this declaration.
Indeed, the truth of the above statement that I made can be gauged from this report in DNA, which says that on an average, there have been 7 farmer suicides a day since the waiver was announced. All the economists, without exception, have said that this loan waiver isn’t really going to help anyone.
The shock though seems to have been reserved for the economists. Without exception, the Rs 60,000-crore loan waiver is seen as the worst kind of fiscal profligacy. What makes it surprising is that it has come from the most pro-reforms duo of P. Chidambaram and Manmohan Singh.
In some sense, they do seem to understand that this being the fifth budget of UPA, it had to be political and, therefore, sops were to be expected. But it isn’t the waiver alone that worries them. The lack of transparency— the budget is packed with expenditure not accounted for in the numbers—and the failure of UPA to address the issue of accountability on public spending.
Heck, are elections a good enough reason to shamelessly waste taxpayers’ money on haphazard social welfare schemes such as this? Really, one would have hoped that the farce ends here. Well, Mr. Rahul Gandhi, the scion of The Royal Family hadn’t played his part yet, had he? On the 13th of March, 2008 the prince made a speech in Parliament in which he said that he wants the loan waiver to be even bigger (by relaxing the two-hectare land holding restriction). Even bigger? These guys are within an inch of throwing open the treasury to the public. Are they mental?
And yes, before you think that no one could possibly give a second thought to such a stupid suggestion, read further. Rahul Gandhi’s dear mommy, Mrs. Sonia Gandhi, sent a reminder to the government that his suggestions should be considered. Of course, no one knows how much additional financial burden the exchequer will have to bear to accommodate The Royal Family’s demands. Does anyone even care anymore?
Finally, let’s give a thought to those poor idiots who may have toiled hard day in and day out to repay their loans but now realise that they need not have paid up at all. They really must be at the end of their tether!
Firstly, I would like to say that this was my first ever bloggers’ meet. I had never been to such a meet before, and therefore, I didn’t know what such a meet would be like. At the end of it all, I must say that it was a great experience and I hope that such meets are held in the future too.
The venue for this meet was the Symbiosis Centre for Distance Learning. At the very beginning of the meet, there was this great video shown to us which defines a blog. I guess it was made by Vineet (the organiser of the meet). It was a great video, dude. Keep it up!
I have embedded the video below. I hope you guys like it too.
After the customary introductions by the IndiBlogger team and a lady called Sandhya Rajan representing Microsoft it was time for ‘1 minute of Fame’, where every blogger was supposed to introduce his/her blog(s). Here I came to know about quite a few great blogs which are worth a mention here.
First there was a ProBlogger called Karamveer Singh. He has a software company called Ayush Software and he claims to own about 200 websites. And his earnings for February 2008? A mind-boggling $55000! I am sure he is one of the highest earners in the blogosphere. Probably the most surprising thing was the presence in the meet of quite a few regional language bloggers (bloggers who blog in Marathi, Hindi etc). This surely is testimony to the fact that the Indian blogosphere is now maturing. And yes, I also met two fellow mutineersHarsha and Maltesh. Then there was Ketan Pandit who has launched a campaign against female foeticide, through his blog. Noble campaign dude, I wish you the very best of luck! And finally, not to forget, there was a ‘celebrity’ blogger among us! She humbly calls herself Just a mother of two.
The next item was ‘How well do you know your readers?’, where the IndiBlogger team would read out a comment and you have to recognise whether that comment is from your blog. And if it is, you have to do what is called ‘The IndiBlogger Jig’. Unfortunately, the second comment read out was from my blog and I had to do that jig! Of course, I botched it up, but I promise to do a better jig the next time around.
After dinner, which consisted of pizzas (which were quite good) and some Coke, it was time for the skit. I had volunteered for this skit and, honestly, though it didn’t make much sense, it was great fun to participate in. The skit was about how a blogger writes a post which is appreciated by a few visitors. But when his blog starts getting spammed, he starts losing visitors, his page-rank goes down and in the end, Akismet (the great anti-spam plugin for WordPress) saves the day.
Then there was the inevitable Microsoft Live Writer presentation. One incredible fact I discovered here was that LiveWriter is a freeware. Heh. No one was ready to believe it, but after repeated assurances from Sandhya that it was indeed a freeware, we sort of came to terms with this (grim) reality!
As for the discussions that took place during the meet, I must mention Vineet’s tips on starting your own self-hosted blog by spending only Rs. 200. He has also written a post on this topic on his blog. Then there was Karamveer Singh doling out tips on how to monetise your blog. And yes, not to forget, there were around four guys from BarCamp who announced that there is a BlogCamp and simultaneously a BarCamp in Mumbai on the 29th of March, 2008 at IIT Powai. Heck, I don’t think I will be able to attend it because of the damned college submissions. Sorry, guys.
For those who want to want to join the blogging bandwagon and feel that they have missed out on a great opportunity in this meet, don’t fret. Such meets happen regularly. The BlogCamp I mentioned above is an example. There is also an IndiBlogger Bloggers’ Meet in Mumbai on the 20th of April 2008. Be sure to drop in there. Honestly, it’s worth the pizzas and the T-shirt (yes, you get a T-shirt too!). Finally, I would like to thank Vineet and the IndiBlogger team for organising this bloggers’ meet. You guys did a great job!
And yes, on the front side of that T-shirt they gave, the following sentence was prominently displayed: “We Blog, Therefore We Are!” Indeed, aren’t we? Happy Blogging!
I support the Tibetan freedom struggle. And yes, it’s partly due to my feeling of deep disgust towards anything communist. The communist Chinese Government sits at the top of this hate list. Just look at the way they occupied Tibet. In 1949, the Chinese Army just barged into Tibet and occupied it. In 1959, there was an uprising led by the Dalai Lama which was obviously crushed and the Dalai Lama fled to India, where he still is.
And now, as the Beijing Olympics draw closer, this struggle is intensifying again. The only problem here is that these protests are becoming violent now. At the moment, China can’t afford to let these protests continue in Tibet. And therefore, you can be sure that if these protests get violent, China will crack down…brutally.
So what can the Tibetans do now? Let me (just a naive Indian, mind you) make a suggestion. Violence never works. It only ends in tragedy and unnecessary bloodshed. The Tibetans should follow the footsteps of Mahatma Gandhi. They should learn the art of Satyagraha (a philosophy and practice of nonviolent resistance developed by Mahatma Gandhi) and non-cooperation. Just imagine: if the Tibetans refuse to cooperate with the Chinese Government and also refuse to retaliate when the Chinese resort to violent methods to crush these protests, who will get the moral victory? You bet it will be the Tibetans. And then the whole international community will rally behind them.
The Britishers faced a similar dilemma during India’s freedom struggle led by Mahatma Gandhi. They were brought down to their knees and finally were forced to leave India solely due to Satyagraha. If Satyagraha worked then, there is no reason why it won’t work now. And with the international community behind them, I am sure that the Tibetans can win their freedom. Let’s hope for the best.
Meanwhile, if you want to help Tibet’s freedom struggle, you may like to check out this website: International Campaign for Tibet
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from
You can see my not-so-handsome photo 
I wonder how anyone can have the heart to commit such a heinous crime as female foeticide. I for one, can at the most kill a mosquito. You give me anything bigger than that, and I can’t do it. Against this backdrop, I have heard that in a few villages, newly born female babies are drowned in a cauldron of milk. Savages! 
