Indian Social Networking Trends

Comscore, the Global Internet information provider recently released their report on the top social networking sites in India. 

The report throws some very interesting results. To kickoff, Facebook as expected has just stormed its way into the Indian audience with a growth rate of 150%. It had 4.044 million visitors this December. Orkut is still the leader with 12 million page views this December (an increase of 81% from last year) which suggests that though Facebook is edging up, Orkut still has the masses who will probably take time to adopt to Facebook. 

However it’s interesting to notice a slump in the page views of Ibibo.com, which has been spending massive amounts on advertising and marketing this past year. The number of visitors on Ibibo dropped by 50% over the past year. Maybe the guys down at Mothership need to rethink into how to penetrate into their target audience better. They did come up with a number of contests and tie up with various college fests to gain a market share but it doesn’t seem to be working as well as they expected. Similar results are portrayed by Big Adda which has also had a decreased traffic rate of 25%.

Hi5 on the other hand has had the highest increase in traffic with an increase of 180% over the last year. 

Linkedin too has had a steady climb with more and more Indians visiting the professional networking website. Perhaps recession has played its part in directing traffic to this website. More and more people are creating a Linkedin account many of whom are still to leave college.

Gaurav says that he doesn't take these stats too seriously since it fails to recognise the traffic that comes from Internet kiosks and PDA, and rightly so. A huge amount of internet users in India don't own a computer and use it from internet cafes, so I suppose the are a lot more numbers that have to be added to this report which may present a different picture altogether.

A tool for future BITSians

Arvind, a friend of mine recently started his venture where he helps students all over India to prepare for BITSAT and answers all their queries.

As far as BITS is concerned at least, there doesn't seem to be a lot of information about it online. Ofcourse there is BITS 360, which according to me is one of the best sources available online for any doubts or queries related to BITS. I did try to write a couple of posts about admission to this prestigious institution, however Arvind has put in some serious effort into this site. He's got practice papers and answers queries, so in case you know someone who is giving the BITSAT soon, do head over to his site. It might be of great help to you.

Tribal concepts of assets and “forest dwellers”

Though I can’t really hand pick the “best” moment from my trip, there are parts which stand out. And meeting Stan Thakaekara was surely one of them. (More about him Here).

Read more about GRASSROUTES: The Road Trip for Social Change 

We went to his office and just sat there while he went on and on, hopping from one issue to another. I didn’t blink once.

When you look at Tribals, the first things that come to your mind are that they are uncivilised, they live on trees, eat leaves, go around strutting, illiterate and so on.

-Stan Thakaekara

He further said that all these were highly negative ways of describing the community, leave alone stereotypical. Tribals are social groups with territorial affiliation yes, but their idea of property is very different from the conventional idea. To tribals, the concept of land ownership doesn’t exist, (s)he thinks of himself as an integral part of the ecosystem while using its resources in a minimalist way.

So how is this relevant?

Look back through history. So like we discussed there was no concept of land as an asset for the tribals. So what happens when people start treating it as an asset? The issue of inheritence comes up. This is the real problem. The inherited land is passed on mainly to the male member of the family and this is one of the fundamental causes of gender inequality. It’s only the man who is in possession of the assets where as the woman becomes a child bearing device.

When I had gone to Chembakuli I had seen that the men and women were both equally vociferous in their opinions. I suppose it all makes sense now.

Now for the interesting and tragic part. The tribals never sought to acquire the land or try to get documents to back up their claim on this land because they never felt the need to. As far as they could remember they’d always been here and the forest had always been nice to them, taking care of all their basic needs.

Coming back to the present:

When the government goes ahead and passes the laws such as the Forest Rights Act etc, they don’t expect the Scheduled Tribes of that particular area to show the documents but instead use wells, small check dams etc as a proof of their existence. That part is alright.

But when the migrants came to this region, they started claiming the land as their property (and the tribals were obviously not aware of this).

Now of these migrants, “forest dwellers” are defined as those who had claimed the land as long as 75 years ago, and they are on the safe side. The tricky part is relating to those migrants who claim to have owned the land for less han 75 years. They are the ones with vested interests and who want the policies to favour them. Obviously, opinions differ on this.

Some people feel that 75 years is too long a time. Imagine a person who has owned the land for only 73 years

Syndicated from the Grassroutes Blog.

To know more about what we did and what we're upto follow the HUNGRY FOOLS Blog

Won the Tata Crucible Jaipur Edition

Remember how I said its been a good run so far as far as the quizzes were concerned? Well, it just got better. 

A lot better.

We (that Sailesh Jha and myself) just won the Jaipur leg of the Tata Crucible campus edition Quiz. The quiz was pretty easy. The official report is here.

In the finals we messed up the directs given to us initially but the buzzer rounds were ours to own. Got two back to back right for +15's which sealed the game for us. But obviously there are areas where we lack. Commercials for example. So this means I gotta start watching TV now :)

So now we're going to be representing Rajasthan and obviously BITS Pilani, at the national semi-finals at Mumbai sometime next month.

This was also my first crucible. Having heard so many different views over the past year about crucible, here is what I would like to say about this particular crucible.

For a city like Jaipur (which isn't really quizzically inclined), for over 100 teams to turn up on a day when you should be out there getting down, is a respectable achievement.

Since it was the first time the quiz was held in Jaipur, they decided to go easy on the questions, this meant no scope to miss sitters. Flattened field. Especially in the prelims. 

I have heard a lot of neative reviews about Giri, and this was my first Pickbrain quiz and if my opinion was to be based on this quiz alone, I'd have to confess that he was an excellent QM. 

And lastly, Tata don't give a SHIT about recession. Instead they go ahead and increase the prize money. And throw in some electronic gadets and what not.

Format:

This was the format for our quiz (though Giri hinted that it might be different at different center, dunno if he was kidding or not)

Prelims, 4 teams make it to finals directly, 2 through wild card round (for <100>

Finals has 4 rounds, first one is dry question round, where questions pass, +10, no negative. 

second round, identification of the photos, same questions passable, +10 no negatives

Next 2 are on the buzzer,

One round is a who am I round, which has 3 questions of three clues each. If you get the answer on the first clue, +15. +10,+5 on subsequent clues. -10 for all wrong answers. 

And then the connect round. +10, -5 marking.

I've tried to recollect as many questions as I could from the quiz:

Photo of Lalit Modi, identify

Photo of Deepak Parekh

Ad of Nokia (old man with duck)

Ad of sunfeast (Dhoni one)

Gave us the full form of IKEA and asked how we better knew this home furnishing giant

Bougette in French means "little bag", what word has this contributed to the world of finance?

Budget 

"One World One Dream" was the tagline of which major mega event in 2008?

Beijing Olympics

Which company makes its product using the 7X formula

Coke

Gave us a pic of an ad-Revlon

Major Indian pharma giant formed by Khwaja Ahmed in 1935 (don't remember the framing of the question)

Cipla

Expand HDFC

Housing & Development Finance Corp

Expand SIM

Subscriber Identity Module

What resulted when Ruth Handler saw her daughter Barbara playing with paper dolls?

Barbie

Logo of Bank of Baroda, Identify

Old B&W pic of Taj Mahal Hotel

On the Road Again

It's been a nice month on the quizzing front for me. Some good money and some good mental floss. First off was the quiz at UIET, Chandigarh. We had earlier planned to go to Gnosiomania but seeing that UIET offered 10k as their prize money we decided to change our destination at the last moment and dashed our way to Chandigarh. Here's a post by the Thapar Guys on their Quiz Blog about the event. :)

Kutub Quizzers hosted that quiz, t'was good wonly. A lot of stuff was quite workoutable and we won rather comfortably though Saurya's team came second by a narrow margin, who were given stiff competition by a team from Thapar. 

So with a lot of cash in our kitty and some excellent food at my relatives place, we came back to Pilani with smiles.

Last week, there was the NSIT quiz fest(check out their quiz blog here). The online quiz had been giving us quite a scare (personally the only question I could answer effortlessly was Chamillionaire, I know my Hip Hop well).

The prelims to the college MELA quiz were pretty decent with a few "weird" ones, but it was us who managed to mess it u. Turned out we just made it, thanks to the starred questions. Vivek and me had teamed up, and Saurya was with some other bloke. Both our teams made it, Saurya's team cracked the elims.

In the finals, we had a dog chase battle with the team sitting next to us (I don't quite know from which college they were) but ultimately we succeeded to narrowly cling on to our lead. Great success. 

We got hammered in the finals coz we missed some sitters. The highlight was the Absolut Connect which no one got. Except me. But even that wasn't good enough to land us the 2nd place which we missed by a couple of questions. It was quite disappointing. But oh well, shit happens. This semester is going to be about conquering Delhi and Jaipur and Chandigarh and what not. Here's a post about the NSIT Quiz in which Ankur raises a valid point, shall address that in the coming posts for sure. And yes, Avinash Mudaliar does look like Baba Ramdev

Hopefully my fellow BITSian comrades will follow my lead. It's a pity that we're so bloody far from any city.

P.S: I fell while snoozing in the bus and now have a dirrrty black mark on my leg. Yes, you did not have to know that. 

But now you do.

Extra Innings at WAT

For the last 2 years I have been actively leading a virtual life, spending a lot of my time online, trivia crunching. A lot of the info has been feaces, but in between I also managed to gain insight into a few things here and there. I have taken a particular liking to Social Media and the Web and wanted to reach out to a larger audience and that is where WATBlog comes.

I shall be blogging about Social Media, Technology and the Internet over here. Do check it out if you're into that sorta stuff.  And visit this link to see all my posts at WAT

If not, well, Whatever Things will aways be basecamp. You can chill here. 

Luck by chance

How true. 

How of us really think what we're learning right now in college might be beneficial to us? Forget those who have not taken their course seriously, I am talking to those who have. How many of you are satisfied with your education?

Most of the times we end up where we don't want to. At the same time, some of the most wonderful opportunities come our way when we least expect it.

I suggest keep trying newer things. However, it's also important to let go of stuff that's not helping you in anyway. Be it stagnant projects, past memories and undesirable people.

I am all for perseverence and hard work. But what about that initial spark? The first crude idea? College can't help you there. Well, not entirely atleast...

(Image courtesy: xkcd)

From Digital Print to the Fine Print: Online Media hitting the stands

I can never stop talking enough about Mutiny Media. What might have at first seemed like a social experiment 5 years ago just became too big.

An amalgamation of several voices (which many a times have conflicting views amongst themselves), Mutiny.in,ventured into the print space becoming Mutiny Magazine. Obviously, its been quite a challenge but we have been just too optimistic and above all believe in citizen media. The website has been revamped recently with some new features.

What I want to say is, can social media resurrect the presumably stagnant print media. I came across this awesome experiment the other day. It's called the Printed Blog and does exactly what Mutiny was doing. They take in user generated content and publish it. They have already signed up a lot of bloggers (300 when I last heard) and have got advertisers readily accepting to associate with them. I wish them all the best and will be closely following the venture.

And ofcourse there is the inspirational story of the photoraphy magazine JPG (whose content is user generated), which is unfolding as we speak. The magazine was about to shut down had it not been for the heroic acts of the readers who found new acquirers for the 8020 Media, the media house that publishes JPG.

As everyone as been saying, this will also be a very interesting time for the publishers for obviously the credibility factor will come into play. The views will have to be backed up with facts and bloggers will have to take responsibility of what they publish. 

It's the same story as that of the indi music scene I suppose.

BTW you can download the first issue of the The Printed Blog here

To subscribe to the Print issue of Mutiny, click here

Winter classes and attendance

Here's an effective way to reward dedicated students in class during winter. Give them marks for attending early morning classes instead of bombarding them with tutorials.

For example:

Janurary in Pilani is a nasty month. Coffee can't be left unattended for more than 5 seconds, baths are postponed by a week and mist gives the campus the appearance of a dream sequence.

And since BITS doesn't believe in shifting the 8-5 timetable to a more convenient 9-6 one, a student is left with 2 choices: Either force himself to wake up using all necessary forces or give up.

In economics one always reads about the work-leisure trade off. In this case the trade off between being wrapped up in the quilt and attending a lecture is little. So while the student will come for the tutorial where the marks are at stake, he will not bother with the class since there's nothing tangible at stake. Give them a little incentive (and no, education isn't good enough) and they will come.

Ofcourse, the other way is to threaten to cancel their registration from the course :)

How will you feel at your high school reunion?

Richard Millington while trying to bag an internship with Seth Godin came up with an excellent post which I feel deserves to be shared.

Someone will have a better job than you.

Someone will have a more attractive spouse than you.

Someone will have a better home than you.

Someone will be more famous than you.

So what?

Measuring yourself against others is dumb. It creates tension, rivalry and you might end up chasing someone else’s goals just to beat him.

The only thing you should measure yourself against are your own objectives. Are you where you want to be in life? Are you as far along in your strategy as you should be?

The moment you begin comparing yourself against others, you have missed the point of having a dream.

Pretty true. And what fascinated me here is how easily we forget this advice. Just think about this for a minute: When was the last time you wanted to do something or take part in something just because others were involved in it?

BITSians in CAT 2008

Here's a list of BITSians who have cleared CAT, I'm sure there are many more, just add the names, %tile and the calls that they have got in the comments section below.

Update: There are rumours flying around that BITS Pilani, has the highest number of call getters from any single institution in India. I don't know the authenticity of that claim though.

Abhishek Humbad 2005-2009, 99.93%,

Aditya Radhakrishnan, 2005-2009, 99.8%,  C, I

Akhil Puri, 2005-2009, B & L

Aravind Vijayasarathy, 2005-2009, 99.96%, 6 calls

Ashwin Iyer, 2005-2009,99.9%

Astha Modi, 2005-2009, C (and some more)

Ayshwarya Vikram, 2005-2009, 99.7%,

Bharat Mimani, 2005-2009, S,                                    

Gaurav Lunia , 2005-2009 99.43% B, K & S

Harshit Didwania, 2005-2009, S

Ishan Bhanu, 2005-2009, 6 calls

Karan Dhall, 2005-2009, 99.83%, 6 calls

Krishna Mohan Radhakrishnan, 2005-2009, 99.7%,

Krishna Prasad 2003-2007, B

Kuhu Sharma, 2005-2009, K

Manav Preet Singh, 2005-2009, all calls,                       

Muralikrishnan Nair 2005-2009, 99.7%

Navin Madhavan, 2005-2009, 98.8%, B & S

Narayanan 2003-2008, A,C,L,K

Nikhil Agrawal, 2005-2009,S

R Vijay(Psyche), 2004-2008, S,L,A,B

Ritesh Agarwal, 2005-2009, A,B & S,

Shashank More,2005-2009,B,K,S,I,L                               

Sri Harsha Majety, 2003-2008, 99.97%, 6 calls

Meeting brother after a while

I am home for a couple of days to spend the remainder of my winter break (to read about my road trip click here). And what's the first thing that greets me here? My brother.

I am 20 and my brother is 11. That’s a difference of 9 years.

However, I believe he’s all grown up now. He’s started playing GTA and started referring to Bipasha Basu as “that sexy thing”. It’s brought a tear to my eye. I have been waiting for this coming of age for so long. Sigh.

He asked me if I'd watch Bachna e Haseeno with him. I obliged and listened to him explain how Deepika Padukone is simply too simple in the movie and hence isn’t worth the hype. Bipasha on the other hand is the real deal and deserves Ranbir.

Also, the other day I was asking him if he plays a character of African American descent in GTA San Andreas. With a look of contempt as if mocking my ignorance, he says “they’re called niggas bhaiyya!”

Inspiration for Ghajini

Aamir Khan was always thought of as a perfectionist. A thinking actor. During his earlier days, he took up roles in movies such as Hum hain rahi pyar ke, where he plays a responsible single parent and Sarfarosh where his Indian nationalist supercedes everything else (yes the one hit wonder of John Matthew Mattan who recently came out with his second movie Shikhar). Sure there was a Baazi too somewhere in between where he got to experience what it felt like to dress like a woman, but well it was all in good spirit.

All in all, with him it was more about articulation rather than flaunting his naked body.

And then came Lagaan. Well one could argue that since he was playing a poor farmer and living in a land which received direct sunshine for over 300 days a year, the role demanded it from him.

Probably even for Mangal Pandey or as I like to call it: Retro Alpha Male, one could again use some sort of reasoning to justify this:

This is in accordance with the fit yet not overly masculine AK that we have known throughout the ages. Either ways, the real Mangal Pandey wasn't known to have a smashing bod either. So alls still well.

But then he does this:

Now, is it just me or does this look similar to another fine fellow with a well chiseled body:

This puts in league with the Grawp whose graphical impression was inspirated by Alfred Neuman.

The Real deal behind 49-O

When I typed in 49-O in my search browser I simply couldn’t locate the Indian government website, because it was overshadowed by a thousands of blog posts, forum debates, discussing the impact of 49-O on our electoral and democratic system. And they all seemed to say that it was something to do an Act passed on in 1969.

An email has being doing the rounds, even more so after the Mumbai blasts claiming that the citizens can invoke article 49-O through which they can tick "no vote" on the ballot. 

But here's the strange part: there’s nothing about elections in the 1969 Amendment Act. What the masses are referring to is in fact “Conduct of Elections Rules, 1961” document. And here’s what it says: (from the Indian Government’s Website)

49-O. Elector deciding not to vote.-If an elector, after his electoral roll number has been duly entered in the register of voters in Form-17A and has put his signature or thumb impression thereon as required under sub-rule (1) of rule 49L, decided not to record his vote, a remark to this effect shall be made against the said entry in Form 17A by the presiding officer and the signature or thumb impression of the elector shall be obtained against such remark.

DNA also carried a news item a couple of days ago where they gave us the low down on the whole affair. According to the article

Retired high court judge, Hosbet Suresh, says, “We have discussed negative voting a number of times during our meets, and even put forth a proposal for the same, but it’s yet to be put into action.”

This means two things:

1) You have to reveal your identity. Because once you decide not to vote you will have to sign next to your name claiming so. Now this is ok, a lot of us are agitated and wouldn’t mind revealing our identity even if it goes against the spirit of the secret ballot (but in this case it’s a special situation since you aren’t really “casting” a vote, you’re refraining to do so).  

However the second thing it also means is that:

2) There will be no re-polls.

The result will remain the same, the guy who gets the highest number of votes wins. Which also means that even if the majority of the nation feels that amongst the candidates standing none of them fits the bill and none would do justice to the nation as the next PM, theres no rule (as of now) which will ensure re-polling.  

Apparently this mail has been doing the rounds for the last 2 years urging people to “take the initiative” to “change” the nation.

The guy who drafted the email; and I’m sure his heart is in the right pace, just became the initiator of a hoax and putting this mail in the same league as that of Jessica, the cute little girl who has been suffering from leukemia AND has been 10 ten years old for the last 9 years.

People tend to follow the masses and go with the flow. So as of now, refusing to cast a vote for any of the candidates (meaning voting for none of the above) and not getting out of your bed on the day of voting means the exact same thing.

Or maybe not, maybe if a substantial percentage of the registered voters opt for "none" we can show the nation what the nation really seeks and send a message across. (thanks @Pranav for the last paragraph

Grassroutes: My plans for this winter

My original plan for this winter was to look for a brief internship and invest all my time in it and gain some valuable experience, preferably in the field of social media. I was almost certain about my plans this winter but that’s when I got to know about Grassroutes. 

So what is Grassroutes?

Grassroutes Fellowship Program sponsors teams of adventurous, passionate young people on their road-trips to discover change-makers at the grassroots and understand first-hand the problems that plague our nation. From their journeys, these social journalists will bring back stories of ideas, inspiration and change, that we believe, will get the rest of us thinking of ways in which we can do our bit.

-Grassroutes Blog

At first glance the fellowship seemed fun and had a certain RDB-esque feel to it, to break free from the shackles of the routine that we’re so used to and just DO something. Grassroutes seemed like just the thing. But as the deadline approached and the more I thought about it, the more I realised that apart from whatever personal gains my team and I might derive out of the fellowship, we have a responsibility to document everything we see and experience, to support the cause that the NGO concerned is fighting for.

 

We have been mapped to environmentalists in the Nilgiris who are out there to preserve the landscape and wildlife of the Mudhumalai forests. Check this link to learn more about the issue concerned.

As part of the fellowship we will be making a documentary (a social activist's roadies? Nah), compiling reports and writing tons of articles about the same after spending 10 days on the road and absorbing all that we gather along the way.

 

Will be come out of this trip as more responsible citizens and bloggers with lesser typos, probably not. But will we give this documentary our best shot (and obviously excel at it) and help spread the word to thousands of people out there, you can count on thatfor sure.

With Grassroutes I am so confident (overconfident?!) that I will have so many stories to tell. 

Only recently did we find out that we’re off to down south for our road trip. More about that later in subsequent posts.

Follow our pursuits on

Our Team Blog: hungryfools.grassroutes.in

Twitter: @Hungryfools

As a parting note for this blog post, a person whom I really admire told me, “In fact, you’re living many people’s dream”.

Here's a team snapshot, I'm the fat guy.

Cupcake conversations

The other day I was having a conversation with a gentleman. I told him that I felt the safest in Pilani since every other place in India; urban or suburban is a potential target. He asked me if the monumental increase in terrorist activity over the years made me want to reconsider India as my home and move base to America upon graduation. I retorted saying that Pilani was probably safer than any place in the US right now. The drug lords that once ruled the sands have had their age catch up with them but despite that I think Pilani is peaceful and serene.

Since migration is nothing new for a Kashmiri who have plenty of experience in this domain, he was expecting me to give him a nod and so my obscure reasoning might have raised his eyebrows. However, I quickly changed the topic to why I felt it also made good economic sense to stay in India, giving him the low down on how our economy will stabilize sooner than other nations. So if it was imperative for me to move camp, I’d rather shift to China (since their economy is also doing well). He told me how on his recent visit to China he observed that the people there were extremely hard-working. Agreeing with him on that point I also chipped in another interesting yet peculiar observation; the lack of hair on their body.

At this juncture I urge you to take a moment and try to remember when was the last time you saw an oriental man sporting a beard, or for that matter a chinkey girl having hair on her legs, and no they don’t wax their legs (thus saving them thousands of yuans throughout their lifespan and increasing their propensity to save); their follicles just don’t produce enough hair.

This prompted him to change the topic of our conversation to his next international visit; to Pakistan, which he recently cancelled. Having been to Pakistan several times, he disclosed that even though the people have been extremely kind to him the times just weren’t suited for such a visit. Probably his numerous visits to the land would invoke suspicion from the Indian Government and spur off an investigation. Alternatively he also believed that its only matter of time before India launches an attack on Pakistan, in which case he would be detained and made a POW.

Upon me telling him that, if such a situation were to ever arise, international groups such as Amnesty International would come to his rescue, he scoffed saying that his head would’ve been smashed to pulp by the butt of a Kalashnikov by the time any action was taken.   

  

Showing the love

Please light a candle to show your support for the innocent and brave souls who gave their life away. Or if you happen to possess a weblog or two, please change its template to something white. Or perhaps, wear a white shirt for an hour to show that you care. And in the meantime, sign the petition to stop terrorism as well as an open letter. If we collect a billion signatures, we will show to the terrorists that they have not harmed us. Divided we fall; true, but we are anything but divided. We want to show to the terrorists through our peace marches and our open letters that they have wasted their effort in attacking us.

So what if they continue to attack one part after another.

Let us tweet about it, showing how frustrated we are, let us have the marches and maybe even an anti terrorism beerfest (after all isn't it about staying united and the media attention here? Promoting the fact that we're united even during terror strikes repeadtedly).

Aditya puts it rather succintly here on Patrix's blog

All that these people want is to get a sense of satisfaction about having done something post-attacks however useless the activity might be.

                                                                                

                                                                                  ***

But then looking back, I ask myself. Don't we all want to feel responsible about it and do something? So what if its a tweet up? The final act of communiating out our thoughts isn't lost is it? So what if we're buying a million candles (and this way also increasing the revenue of the wax industry)?

Look, at the end of the day we all need a reason. Many of us do not know how to contribute to this situation. One reason might be because most of us have never experienced it. Being a Kashmiri, I still don't know about the perils and fear my people have faced. Sure I have heard of it, but have never felt it. 

Last summer I was involved in a startup called YoFa. At that time it's motto was Think, Speak, Do. It was about Youth Activism. However, it never specified how much of each should be done. That was left to the person concerned. Similarly, maybe some people want to show their activism through speaking a lot, hence the tweeting, facebooking, endless blogging, some want to think, and some want to do.  

But then there is a fourth activity which was never mentioned in YoFa but which has a role to play. And that's "follow". There are many amongst us, who will move on (or already have) and who have absolutely no idea about how to contribute. So we Retweet, we share links and quote others and so on. And I don't think this wrong. I remember someone once telling me, "if you don't know what to do, follow the crowd". And barring few situations, it hold true. It certainly holds true in this case.

I guess this is what most of the people who go on these candle marches and wear those white shirts also believe in. But as long as it isn't harming anyone, let each one do his own.

Sure if you WANT to go ahead and urge the politicians and ask them to step down, do that as well. 

P.S: YoFa has now transformed into something cooler. They now send people on 10 day road trips to NGOs and become agents of social change. Check their latest initiative Grassroutes

Mumbai Blasts: Lateral thinking

“Its time we stop being a secular nation!” my friend opined as we were sipping on some lemon sherbet. “There are far too many Islamist nations out there, so it’s not like they won’t find a home. Just drive these bastards out”

I was a bit shocked at his statement. Not knowing whether this was his attempt at black humour or if he actually believed in the segregation, I told him that a substantial portion of the civilians killed were in fact Muslims (You can check the entire list here), Indians.

My friend’s statement is one of the million opinions that the people of the nation have expressed after the Mumbai blasts which have, and it’s rather mildly put, devastated the nation.

“We must fight back” is the natural response to these attacks, but how? Will catching hold of these terrorists and then executing them on camera work? Probably this way tell the whole world that we will not take to terrorism lightly and can be brutal when the need arises. Or maybe this way give the terrorism the much needed media attention that they have been wanting and establish them as martyrs on the other side of our border.

Collaborating with Pakistan on combating terrorism is another line of thought. As this article points out:

If Pakistan truly wishes to turn back the tide of fundamentalism in its country, and stop exporting violence overseas, then it must have proper support and assistance from India.

Somehow it seems a little late for this. It’s been a while & they don’t really seem to be doing anything about it, as more and more cities are being attacked by the terrorist groups. These groups I am sure must have also appointed a creative lead for providing them with innovative names for their outfit (Deccan, seriously?).

I am also deeply worried by the level of infiltration that might exist in our organisations. It’s probably something that has not received enough media attention but I do believe that a lot of people on the inside are involved. Fake IDS, plans of buildings, secret information, access codes. I doubt if the terrorist intelligence are that good to do it all on their own. Mumbai Underground might have had a role to play too.

Other news items include the whole nation calling Raj Thackeray a eunuch who excretes from his mouth and that pretty much sums up his existence. The MNS has done nothing to help the situation in Mumbai and watched with their heads bowed as their city got molested in front of their eyes for three days. 

As a parting note: We should have been smarter. We should have picked up the hints right away. And where were the hints? In this article which no one bothered to take seriously.

Pakistan is as safe a country as India and we had even promised state level security for the Australians and other teams. This incident only shows the double standards of Australian cricket, 

-Shafqat Naghmi, chief operating officer of the PCB told fumed. 

Clearly unmistakable. :)

GTA Mumbai

Sometime around midnight as I log on to twitter, I am bombarded with repeated tweets quoting stats and posting links.

Mumbai was under attack.

Media people are saying that this time the target were the elite and the foreigners. In reality, no one was spared. The terrorist which claim to belong to the Deccan Mujahideen outfit (as @Manuscrypts puts it :WTF is this? The IPL?) just stole a police van and started shooting everyone in their vicinity, and beyond.

We were flipping channels trying to see one graphic image after another. It's not really a matter of opinion here, it was pretty darn scary.

As my friend and I were discussing while sipping a hot cup of coffee at the all night canteen at my college; this is GTA Mumbai.

Additional fact: The maker of the Taj Mahal hotel committed suicide by jumping off the hotel when he found out that the hotel wasn't built in the direction he had intended it to be.

Why I feel Yuvi is more attractive a cricketer then Sachin/Sehwag

As far as the game is concerned,one of the main reasons why I’d rate Yuvraj as a more attractive batsman than say Sachin and Sehwag is because in essence Yuvraj is a finisher. Often, Yuvraj is the last man standing steering India to a decisive victory, saving it from the gallows by capitalizing during the slog overs. Quite the same reason why Klusener or Rhodes were considered more attractive than say Jacques Kallis or Gary Kirsten for South Africa. In the end it comes down to match winning abilities. Yuvraj drives some deliveries over cover, scoops one over long off and flicks one of point to win the match for India. I am not taking away any credit from Sachin, however he was considered rather selfish at times (at least in test cricket) by some. Maybe it were just the times, who knows. Yuvraj’s elegant stroke play, his knack of finding gaps combined with his herculean looks make him ideally suited to be admired not only in sporting circles, as well as the fan base, a substantial portion of which were women.

Another reason why Yuvraj is particularly more attractive than Sachin is because Yuvraj’s entry into the team was at a time when our team was going through a renaissance phase. A time when we proved to many that we could rise from the ashes of mediocrity. It was during this time that Yuvi rose to prominence, as a killer fielder, fielding with a sort of arrogance that made batsmen think twice before stealing a run.

Its tough to isolate our thoughts and compare how we felt about Sachin when we first saw him perform. Hence, a situation now comes to surface where Sachin is ageing and hence has lost most of his aggression and is more cautious and leading more of a hermit’s life where as Yuvraj is at his peak; scoring consecutive centuries and still spitting attitude where ever he trots.