Big Company: Essel Group They are the company behind Zee Entertainment, Zee News, DNA newspaper and many other Big projects! One of their businesses is DMCL : Digital Media Convergence Limited. Dunno what to say about convergence but one of their sites my POPKORN is seriously TErrrrribLLLEeee!
* Fidayeen are basically suicide bombers who go in with a lot of ammo and wreak havoc kill people but have no escape plan chalked outOne clarification: I am in no way trying to support the terrorists or their actions I am simply trying to make a point, that terrorists are made they are not born. I am just taking a look at what makes people forgot all love, laughter and joy. What makes people leave all regard for their life??The term that I am hearing people use most is a over powering bleakness to describe how they feel after all these hours of ongoing open terroristic activity in Mumbai.These people have not lost any of their families or close friends in the event. Very loudly these fidayeen are being called inhuman, cowards, cold people. Tell me if we were a minority caste in any state not necessarily India and our friends, family were killed and no one the government nor the state even sent us condolences instead and we got absolutely no redressal measures from the state bodies.What would we do??I have read the biography of Hitler and these are people who on the basis of their caste or financial status are denied jobs, they are denied a future!When I stay in a posh house, AC cars, lap tops, computer games I know what frustration is.I can only imagine the situation many people are being put into.In the UN MDG Summit there was this PG student who asked a UN hot shot that many youth were supporting terrorists now a days is this because of bad education system?? And the guy said that when he was young he had a job In JaiHind college of mumbai, and while working with the finances he found some money was being used suspiciously. There was a certain amount taken as fees but it was not used fully some of it 'disappeared'.So he raised the question where was this money.In retaliation the Jaihind admin fired him. Later on he filed a case and got supprt from other JAihind faculty and he was reinstated BUT what he said was that when he was fired he wanted to burn the college down. This was a guy who had a good home and good education and everything.So if a guy who is from a poorer place who is supporting his family and suddenly political situations leaves him with no way to support himself despite the fact that he is educated, what would he do??Maybe he would feel strong enough to join a terroristic group and stop caring about his life.I had seen an interview by a terrorist who was in jail sometime back and if you listen to him his ideas are good! He was trying to change the world, he thought these people would make a better country. Later on ofcourse he realised that he got into something wrong but it was kinda too late for him to get out.Probably he realised that the top people of these terrorist organizations are being supported by many countries and so they are playing a very different ball game. I will be writing in a few days about all revolutions being elitist which will kinda tie up with what I have written in the last few lines.But I wanna ask a question why do we never talk of rehabilitating a terrorist. Can we as a society never even think of such a thing forget providing it??There are african places where such things are being done. Maybe cause that country is so full of gun rule that these people need to be rehabilitated. Here however they are 'expendable'.Get such interesting posts at your Inbox!!
Social networking can actually used in such occasions where promptly making a twitter group where all people in South Mumbai various locations log in and keep us updated on what is happening. Cause I was going out to Dadar and one of my friends online told me that there was fresh shooting reported by CNN IBN so I waited and then everything changed I shut the room that faces the street.So definitely networking can help. This way even if the channels are shut down information exchange will still take place through computers. This can either be taken up by media channels or by some of the social media networking company cause they would be connected to large networks so they can get the people to be part of the group.My own twitter group though quite small has had some updates on the situation.Get such interesting posts at your Inbox!!
Now I really feel at siege, I have heard blasts, firing somewhere outside, cancelled my plans to go out.New firing at CST and GT hospital.I feel sick and I don't know how free running terrorists on the streets can be caught!Am editing this post to inform that the fresh firing might be rumours.The police are denying this firing. A driver just came to our building and he confirms firing at crawford market. Get such interesting posts at your Inbox!!
After staying at home yesterday, to aid the government by giving them empty and clear roads, I today went out for a stroll.Primarily I wanted to donate blood. I went to Bombay Hospital which is closest to my house. They had cordoned off the hospital, no one was allowed inside without a very valid reason.I asked him about blood donation and he said that enough blood had been collected yesterday and today the banks were not taking any more.Then I went to St. George's hospital where I found the area was calm, clean and kinda empty. Maybe I was in a different building and the casualities were taken to another wing or building, because as I went to the blood bank I came across a room with around 20 clean beds for patients and I wondered cause I expected the hospitals to be full and over whelmed with casualty.I had come 30 hours after the start of events when the max casualties were taken so maybe by now the hospitals had sorted stuff out and things were less chaotic.At the blood bank a guy took down my name and number and said that they would call us in an emergency.As I left and walked about the CST I saw a few military men positioned here and there, there were also pockets of police men who were standing chatting, probably reiterating the incidents that has shaken the city.Get such interesting posts at your Inbox!!
Just saw this kick ass program on TIMES NOW, will high light some salient points discussed by this panelSome absolute criticism for the state government:What I want to say now is that I myself and I think many more were just waiting for the next terror strike which would hit Mumbai. The terrorist group that took resposibility for the Delhi, Ahmedabad blasts had said Mumbai was their next target. I don't want to criticize the police and government too much cause they were taking some precautions. Like the security at the stations and stuff. Often I myself saw many a times bomb squads checking out suspicious material. However again as I mentioned in another post of mine that I think that anti terror efforts need to be channelized well with a great understanding.Emergency blood banks, medical volunteers for hospitals should have been arranged for, so that when the reporters go to these places to get stories they shouldn't be met by blood, gore and chaos. God knows what the injured face, maybe the ordeal at the hospital could be the worst of all their trials.Police need to have protective clading!! They should have medical training so they know basically how to hold, lift injured people. They should know what to do when shot or injured! In fact there should be another volunteer base of some 20-25 yr olds who can just be called to maintain some sort of order with the onlookers in a crisis situation. As is evident on the hit locations that many people have just come there to see the 'show'. The police need not deal with these guys let their be youth who take active part in what the city faces. Also from what I have seen there are many concerned youth who would come forth if they can be utilized; but the government was busy with election campaigns I think.As some hot shot said, the youth are not useless they are just not used well.Get such interesting posts at your Inbox!!
Will be putting up a few posts related to the terror activities happening in and around Mumbai. Another new aspect that has come to my notice, the TV has now extended the service where commoners directly affected by or having any news of the terror attacks can call TV channels and report. Atleast I am seeing this in Times Now.They have gotten a few calls from people trapped in Taj, and the anchors have been very clear about not disclosing the location of these people in the Taj cause the terrorists would also be watching TV.With the advent of mobiles, mobile internet connectivity, laptops etc... these kind of hostage situations have gained new turns where some times media can actually talk to hostages and sometimes even the perpetrators of the crime. One of the first incidents where this happened was when a couple of students took a school hostage somewhere in America I forget the name.The trapped students started calling up from their mobiles and started writing what was happening live on the internet. So some of them disclosed on air how they were staying away from the criminals and well the criminals also happened to be tuned to the television broadcast. Thus they got on tracks of these hidden students and the episode got ugly due to media intervention. So it is definitely good to see the media handling this situation is now taking these things into consideration! Times Now has clearly disclosed that they will not be talking any strategy, specific locations and such stuff on air.Though ofcourse they are showing footage of where the military is placed outside but well I think they are still doing a great job. Some of them have been in studio from the beginning staying awake all night long I think that is amazing.So Kudos to TIMES NOW who I think is doing a fantastic job of covering the terror attack on Mumbai!!Get such interesting posts at your Inbox!!
Sitting here in my room which happens to be in posh South Mumbai, the saving grace of Mumbai, financial capital of India. I am hearing the commentary of a Times Now reporter talking abt a possible hostage situation at Trident hotel which is a 5 minute walk from my place.Another possible hostage situation where a top cop lost his life is the Taj Mahal hotel. Which is again a small walk away, and I could hear one of the blasts in this hotel. That blast caused a great fire in one of the Taj rooms and now the fire has entirely spread on the fifth floor! The Taj dome is bursting and breaking under the heaten throes of the raging fire.A number of other places shootings, blasts are taking place! I told my watch man to sit inside the building and close the doors.In colaba it seems the terrorists got into a residential building terrace and consequentially a couple in their home were killed!I feel a sense of being dazed. I could call it a sense of unreality but I think it is the sense of reality settling into me. Maybe listening to blasts in Bangalore, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Assam, Islamabad did not do it. Maybe reading about the Congo genocide did not do it.But this that is happening is where the world is at......More later, now I am starving it is 3.00 in the morning and I need to eat.Get such interesting posts at your Inbox!!
Just came across this really touching article about the Narmada Bachao Andolan. I myself don't know about the situation first hand but what this Dr. from IIT and IIM has written seems quite authentic and to the point.From a couple of my professors who do know the Maharashtrian government people said that its not that the government ministers do not want to do anything for the good of common people but often they lack visionaries and people who can really think things through and really see the situation in its depth and do justice to both sides. I consider this as a bigger barrier to development than corruption and other baser realities. When people want to do something but lack the right channel to do it.This was one of my reasons for joining a NGO. Because I come from an understanding that most people wanna help others, the problem is not the lack of willingness to help. It is the lack of an understanding which allows a person to help another. Certain depth and perception is needed to help another person. First of all you within yourself need to be well settled and then you need to see what that person is and what he needs. Otherwise your interference in his life could just be like the story of the boy who killed the butterfly.The story: This boy really loved nature. One day he was walking by some plants and he saw a butterfly was wrapped in a cocoon. This caught his fancy and he came to see this everyday. On one such day when he went to see the larva he was over joyed at seeing a crack in the larva, the butterfly was really struggling, trying to break out.With all his good intentions he decided to 'help' this 'poor creature' and broke the cocoon himself and the butterfly was free.Now the boy left with a good feeling inside him feeling on top of the world BUT what he didn't know was that naturally the butterfly had to break the cocoon and in this process the wings of the butterfly got strengthened. This did not happen and now the butterfly was actually maim cause his wings were very weak.So generally I consider pity as something very audacious cause who the hell do you think you are to pity any body!! Anyway I am digressing I hope I have made myself clear.Government officials have great responsibility.... and they need to have a lot of understanding to do anything well.So now you'll can read this Narmada Bachao Andolan article :) This site has some other interesting articles as well, do take a look and if you find it interesting let me know. It also has links to Fahrenheit 9/11 documentary.Get such interesting posts at your Inbox!!
I am not talking of changing times facing the world, now that Obama has been elected :p I was just thinking about how the retail market has changed. Just some 12 years ago I remember as a kid I wanted to wear cool clothes blues, yellows and pinks; but nothing of the sort was available. Pants would mean brown, black or dark blue. T-shirts would mean striped or checked prolines.In a few years the markets changed and there was a flood of cool clothing for kids! Gini and Johnny was my favourite for many years. This varied clothing allowed me a large say in what I bought.With the advent of web 2.0, the retail markets are getting totally revolutionized! Consumers are now getting a large say in not only what they buy but a large say in what gets produced!Take for eg the many customizing outlets in the mall near your house or the many online portals that enable this service! This way the mugs, tees and other accessories produced are what you want.Even at Inkfruit, designers are submitting awesome designs but finally what gets produced is people's choice!I think this is just amazing!!Get such interesting posts at your Inbox!!
Continued from UN MDG Summit - Day 1 and UN MDG Summit - Day 2So the summit is not yet over, Day 3 is the day that the delegates are sent to make a documentary which was to be submitted next day by 4 pm. Most of them had no prior experience with cameras or editing softwares.The various groups went to places related to their goal nearby villages, NGO's. My group went to press office of the Express Group at Mahape, New Mumbai and the to the office at Nariman Point.The highlight of the day was when I took my first semi professional interview of the Indian Express, Editor of Mumbai, Mr. Rajesh! Now this bit is important to me, I will explain why later.Basically I went with a bunch of people who would film the interview and stuff. I briefed him that he had to speak about, "what according to him was media's role in achieving a global partnership for development over the world".He took a few minutes to think while the camera got adjusted and stuff.Then he spoke, maybe for a minute or two.... but what he said was really, really good stuff. He pretty much hit the point on the head. I can't repeat what he said because I don't have such memory but it was about media giving coverage to all parts of the world who were in trouble not just those in whom the western countries had some vested interest... Well so this is kudos to him! Often media is criticized for its sensationalism and all but frankly I think this dude was cool. :)So anyway what happened other than that was basically one of the worst team experiences I have had!!It was 89% quibbling, arguing and bossing around and 11% work IMHO :pWhat happened the next day was worse cause most of the people in the group were absolutely and totally side lined just a few people were allowed to come close to the documentary and editing team. These few people included the top guys friends and the editing maestro.The editing guy had good editing experience and did a great job technically! BUT the content was handled horribly!The interview of this editor was almost completely removed! (hence I have made it a point and mentioned it here) In its place was a russian girl talking about a fairy tale. (The 'one stick can easily be broken but a bundle of sticks can't be snapped' one) Not only was this fairy tale cliche it was also inappropriate for the Goal 8! At the end our documentary was well, bad! It didn't have much point to it. Such obvious things were over looked by the editing team that it is not even worth pointing out here!I had horrible memories of the classmates in college who are mean to others because they are so insecure about their appearances or their dumbness!My group had some amazing people like this South Korean who had founded his own company, me with my experience with a NGO where we are used to getting into completely new things at a very short notice, another dude who had previously made a documentary and other talent but yet the heads (20 year old twats) were the worst I have ever met, they "handled" the rest of us!! So such was the end of the summit, we watched documentaries made by all the groups in the closing session. Wow, many of them were really, really good! I will be putting a few of them up as soon as they are uploaded on the WFUNA website :)I also met some awesome people on this summit, will be writing about a few of their projects cause they are really interesting!Get such interesting posts at your Inbox!!
Some Indian happenings!Get such interesting posts at your Inbox!!
This day I was sick! So I personally did not attend it. The account I got is that there was a more focussed discussion and the participants had to make a presentation about a solution for their particular goal. (All the 300 odd participants were grouped into 8 for each MDG)Once the presentation was done it was announced that the top 3 winner's ideas would be taken up by the UN and will get $ 3 billion funding each.Knowing the group (since I was fated to attend the next two days), I am pretty aware of what kind of discussions must have taken place and if the money actually goes into these projects I would consider it misallocation of UN funds!Simply because the age group was 15 yrs to 28 years! There had been no check about how much research the delegates had done. Moreover many of the delegates did not have the decency of listening other people out, they plainly threw their attitude around!Get my other interesting posts at your Inbox!!
So what are the MDG's ??Well in 2000 the world leaders came together and decided that the social work that was being done should be quantified, so they set some goals for themselves to be fulfilled by 2015.So these goals are:I was assigned to group 8....Get my other interesting posts at your Inbox!!
I have underlined stuff so you can just skim this article and don't feel daunted by having to read all of this!We had inaugural dinner on the 7th. I made use of the occasion by tasting both the wines they served so I now know my preference in wine.I prefer red wine in taste only cause I can make out the grape in it, while in white wine I could not detect the grape taste... I also met an ex professor of mine Mr. J. B. Mistry, reminded me of my geeky days as a Physics student. Well I am still quite geeky instead of mechanics, thermodynamics and relativity I now discuss politics and business structure :)So that was the inaugural dinner.... Now the first day was well terrible (so was saving it for last)Not blaming any one or anything, the projector did not work so we could not watch the planned movie inconsequential truth. So we kind of looked around and introduced ourselves and as it turns out I did not have to be apprehensive since none of us had prepared a speech :DThen we had a lecture by an ex Jaihindite Swami Swaroopananda, well this made me queasy in my stomach cause monks remind me of my days when I lived with monks at the Isha Yoga Centre and well that was a profound experience of my life.Anyway Swami Swaroopananda is from the Chinamayananda mission. I know this mission a little closely cause one of my Moms friend is quite involved in it. I have also stayed at this ashram in Powai for a day and had a chat with another swami there ....One of the interesting things he said was that we should be able to distinguish between needs, desires and goals. Needs being the basic needs of food, clothing and shelter. Also emotional and psychological needs. We cannot live for long without these needs being fulfilled. Desires are many and fulfilling of desires make us happy. Goals he said are those that while achieving them we transform! I think that was deep. Some food for contemplation. :)Then we had a lec by Mr. Chetan Narain, he is seemingly a big shot in Real Estate. Well he tried to talk to us about life and some personal theory of his which made sense but frankly IMHO had nothing to do with our research about the MDG goals or UN .... and hence a lot of us felt disgruntled about it.Which reminds me I should put a post about the MDG's of UN!! Will do that tomorrow....Then we had a panel discussion where we were given more gyaan about empowering ourselves. I felt I had come to 'how to manage your life' summit. Get such interesting posts at your Inbox!!
Have a bunch of posts coming... :pI am not sure when I shall get the time to type everything.Last few days I was one of the delegates at a UN Millenium Development Goal Summit, 2008.So will be ranting and writing about that :pMet some very cool people and some dumb youngsters throwing around their attitude! Get such interesting posts at your Inbox!!
Came across this firefox addon! Seems really good, though I have switched to chrome, so I dunno whether I will use it but a friend of mine says it is awesome. And definitely after watching this video it is very impressive.
Ubiquity for Firefox from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.Get such interesting posts at your Inbox!!
Hurrah for Obama! Heard his speech was good after winning. Hope sense and humanity shine through his deeds.For the ongoing MNS and Raj Thackeray Debacle....Just read this really good postIt is has an interesting perspective about Maharashtrians going all over the globe actually and working; then why should others be stopped from working in Maharashtra.Also another thought on MNS is that their point might actually be legit to a certain extent but currently what Raj Thanckeray and MNS are wroughting is really goonda gardi in its grossest sense. And because of them the cause of Marathi Manoos might actually lose any genuineness it might have!The government both central and state need to take strong stands against such wanton violence, moreover individual mumbaikar needs to make a stand.In fact in retaliation to any more violence/killing/harassing of a non-maharashtrian in Mumbai, Mumbaikars should go on strike. I know that such strikes have many consequences, but the government's inaction is really not excusable.It has been a couple of weeks since Raj Thackeray was freed on bail.. and nothing of the case is being reported hence.Get such interesting posts at your Inbox!!
My stand on the American elections is clear... the choices are Barack and Obama. :)I don't know whether this joke is funny. But well I remember cracking Dumbya man jokes when I was much younger and then Bush declared war on Iraq. I stopped reading newspapers that day cause until then I thought the world was 'civilized'.(A superhero called Dumbya man was created on Bush. This Dumbya man had super power to be dumb :D)I think democratic is a better stand for America and I would favour Barack Obama, hopefully the next election campaign in India brings me as clear a choice too so I can exercise my opinion not just write a blog post on it :) Thinking about it my this post actually contributes to pro Obama sentiments online! Get such interesting posts at your Inbox!!
I just took a week off from all work and internet activities. Mixed around with family members, rangoli colours, contemplated and generally disapproved of crackers.Various celebrations took place around the world on this occasion that apparently depicts the coming of Rama back into world from Sanyaas.One such function was at Isha Yoga Centre, where a 1,000 lamps were lit at their multi-religious temple called the Dhyanalinga. This Centre is abt an hour away from Coimbatore, an interesting location to visit.Get such interesting posts at your Inbox!!
